Horror Movie Summary

Name : Mega Ernawati

NPM : 12 23 070

Class : A 4.3

Posted by Nekoneko on April 30, 2013

Posted in: Reviews, Thai Films. Tagged: anthology, Ghost, Horror, Reviews, Thai. 5 Comments

Ooohh!! I’ve finally an afternoon off to my lil’ self and.. thanks to the recent Taiwanese DVD release of the 2012 Thai horror anthology “3 A.M. – 3D”, your Favorite Catgirl has gotten the much needed fix of creepy ghost stories I’ve been needing of late. Kung fu and swordplay are nice… but there’s no denying it… this wee lady just loves her ghost stories…. ;)

Our synopsis? “Thailand’s latest horror is made up of three chilling and stomach-churning stories… ghosts, demons and vengeful spirits are all out to haunt at 3AM, the scariest hour of the night.

In a wig shop crammed with lifeless heads of dolls, something turns out to be not really lifeless… Mint and May are sisters from a wig-making family, the two can’t get along but were made to man the shop while their parents went out of town. Their nightmare came alive when May unknowingly acquired hair of a dead person….

In a stranger’s house with a dark history, two corpses lie peacefully, side by side… Tos is assigned to take care of Mike and Cherry – a couple killed in an accident just before their wedding. Their parents decide to keep their corpses, as the couple loved each other so much – and their parents still treating them as if they were still alive. With Tos spending all his time with the corpses, he soon falls in love with the dead, but beautiful Cherry… what will this twisted love leads too?

In the middle of the night, the office is as deserted as a graveyard, strange things happen… Karan and Tee are owners of a company whose office is in building rumored to be haunted. The two aren’t scared, and actually enjoyed playing pranks on their staff who work late at night. But soon, the pranksters are no longer certain if the strange things that happened in the office are their game – or someone else’s…”

So… sounds like these stories ought to be right up my alley. But.. to know if they might be the sort of thing you’ll want a look at o’ Gentle Visitor, then you’ll wanna “Read On” and find out all about the creepy goings on…

In this Catgirl’s humble opinion, Anthologies really are the way to go with horror stories…. Remember all those nifty short story collections in books waaaaay back when you were a kid? No? You don’t? Well Neko most certainly does… and I must have read a mountain of them back when I could borrow them from our local library. In movies from those same years, lots and lots films with that selfsame formula ran on TV practically all the time…. all telling those creepy lil’ nuggets of a tale maybe not big enough to fill out the run-time of an entire film, but still powerful and effective bits of storytelling nonetheless. I’ve always liked them. So naturally… when it comes to the Asian horror I like to watch as a grown up kitten, a lil’ nostalgia is never a bad thing for an evening’s eerie film fun. ;)

Now… Thai horror usually likes to go for the gore of late rather than those quiet suspenseful moments of dread yours truly normally prefers, but for the most part, “3 A.M.” tries to go more towards that quiet chill… all wrapping it’s stories around the theme of what this wee lady assumes is the Thai equivalent of “The Witching Hour”… but in Thailand, apparently, that’s at 3 in the morning rather than midnight as most of us here in the West think of it. Hey… you learn something new everyday. ;)

What we get are three stories… all told by three separate directors all with different styles… and differing ideas of what’s scary… and not all coming to jell together as a coherent whole. We start with “The Wig”, directed by Patchanon Thammajira about the fate of two sisters, May and Mint (played by Focus Jirakul and Apinya Sakuljaroensuk respectively) who’s family run a shop producing custom made wigs for cancer patients made from real human hair. Sound familiar? Yep… both the Koreans and the Chinese have visited that idea before, so I knew there probably wouldn’t be any surprises with this one… and I was right.

As can be expected, sooner than you can say “Oh no he didn’t…” some guy is slicing of the hair of some pretty corpse to sell to our wig makers. Yeah… that ought to make for a very cranky.. very bald.. ghost looking for some payback. Now May is unaware of this of course… and despite the fact that she’s both respectful of the hair given into her care as well as mindful of the important gift it is for those who receive the fruits of her talented labor, she’s right in the path of that anger along with her bitchy mean spirited sister who could care less about being a part of the family business. Nope… Mint is just the sort of person who truly deserves some ghostly retribution… and she gets it of course, but not before her sister May pays the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The second story, “The Corpse Bride”, directed by Kirati Nakintanon, tells the story of a medical student Tos (played by Toni Rakkaen) looking to make some extra cash by playing caretaker to the coffins of a young newlywed couple Mike and Cherry laid out in their wedding clothes in the chapel of their creepy home for a few days prior to their funeral. Although we never see Mike… due to some fairly messy accident he suffered on the night they died… we do get to see plenty of sexy Cherry as Tos starts getting a wee bit obsessed with her.

A little necrophilia anybody? Oh yeah… we got that covered. Mind you… being a Thai film under the new censorship rules there’s lots more hints about it than anything really nasty and gratuitous in that way. Thank goodness… Now there is an evil ghost in this tale with an ax to grind along with all that forbidden desire… but it’s not the ghost you might think and not the vengeance you might expect either.

Then we switch gears to the quirky “OT” directed by former Ronin Team member Isara Nadee… all about the odd elaborate pranks and games played by Karan and Tee (played by Shahkrit Yamnarm and Ray MacDonald), the owners of a software company, on their employees after-hours in the darkness of their offices in a highrise. Seems most of their IT workers are nothing but terrible slackers all day, wasting their time until they can clock in for extra OT hours unsupervised at better pay. That naturally, is something Karan and Tee decide needs to stop. After they have a little fun that is. This results in those same employees pranking back… and bringing even more extreme tricks from the bosses in return as they each strive to top the last stunt. Oh yeah…. that sort of crazy stuff just has to result in someones death… but the real trick is figuring out who will die first. Or if they’ll even realize it.

So… how did these stories go down for this wee Catgirl? Hmmm… they certainly were a mixed bag and I can’t say they meshed together all that well to evoke a common sense of horror… even the idea that each story occurs at the self-same 3 A.M. “Witching Hour” didn’t really help to tie them together all that well. For me, anyway, they could have just as easily been independent episodes of a TV series crudely stitched together to make a feature film. Not that the stories themselves were badly done, mind you… it’s just that they truly lack any overall linking element that would have helped to make them seem a seamless coherent whole story, film wise.

“The Wig” is probably the weakest of the three… having mined an idea that’s pretty much been done to death.. (or should that be Un-death? ;) ) It’s an OK “vengeance from beyond the grave” thing, but certainly nothing to get truly excited over. “The Corpse Bride” fares better, although you’ll probably see the “twist” reveal coming long before it happens… and the necrophilia angle… well that just creeps you out… and not in a scary way. :(

Probably my favorite of the three has to be “OT”, just for it’s wacky “ghost bustery” feel as the bosses and employees each duel it out with supernaturally flavored pranks and outrageously unbelievable situations gone sooo, sooo wrong. Even so… you’ll probably figure out this one’s ending too about half way through, but at least watching it’s story play out is entertaining in a creepy, goofy way.

All in all, this wee Catgirl gives “3 A.M. – 3D” a mediocre 3 “Meows” out of 5. It’s OK… but simply nothing special in the way of being truly unique or even creepy. The Taiwanese Region 3 DVD is adequate… widescreen with good English subtitles… but weirdly enough they are… wait for it… hard-subbed along with Chinese ones like old VHS tapes from HK used to be. Say what? Yep. No kidding. Hard to believe on a DVD format where separate selectable subtitles are not only easily possible, but the standard on 99% of DVD’s released, well… anywhere. At least they were accurate… and… they were actually there which is more than I can say for the official Thai release for this one. Ahhh… and it’s one big plus… this one was originally theatrically released as a 3D movie, but was thankfully completely without all that 3D tomfoolery on this particular DVD release. Still… even with that…. I’m told this one is also due out in HK soon, so if watching it is on your list, it might be worth your efforts to take a peek at the specs for that disc when it finally comes out.

Name : Yulli Darna Novitasari

NPM : 12 23 067

Class : A 4.3

It’s off to Thailand this time out for a look at 2013′s version of the classic Thai ghost story of Mae Nak, the horror comedy “Pee Mak”. Reaching a bit, perhaps for inclusion in our “Haunted House” theme for this month, but a classic ghost story almost always has some sort of haunted location…. and this wee Catgirl certainly loves classic Thai horror. ;)

The quick synopsis reads:“Once upon a time during the King Mongkut Era during which Siam was still plagued with wars with neighboring kingdoms, Mak was drafted to serve in a war against foreign invasion, forcing him to leave behind his pregnant wife Nak alone at home in the village of Phra Khanong in Bangkok. In the life-or-death front line he met four soldier comrades who later became his best friends. Meanwhile, in Bangkok his wife Nak painfully struggled to give birth to their baby alone. After that rumors started circulating around that Nak had already died in labor and was now a ghost haunting the house and waiting for her husband’s return. At night, villagers in the neighborhood would hear her sing a lullaby to help her son to go to sleep, causing hair-raising chills up and down the spine to the villagers who lived nearby. When the war was over, Mak invited his friends to stay over at his house and meet his beautiful wife Nak. After a series of uncanny events, his four friends and some villagers worried for Mak’s safety so they tried to tell Mak that his wife was already dead.”

A little creepy stuff… a little funny stuff… and some sweet romantic stuff… I’m thinking we might just have a winner here. But… as always… the truth is in the watching, so let’s not waste any more time and get right to it, shall we?

If you’ve seen as many Thai horror films as a certain kooky Catgirl has, then you probably are already pretty darn familiar with this perennial Thai favorite… the tragic doomed love story that is Mae Nak. Heck… since the mid 50′s there have been nearly 20 different versions of this Thai folk-story done. On film, on TV… animated… live action… even as an opera. It’s been a horror story, a comedy, a musical… but always, it’s been first and foremost, a love story.

In every version, the story is basically the same… about a lovely girl named Nak, who lived in a tiny village near the Phra Khanong canal outside Bangkok, and her undying love for her husband, Mak. Her husband Mak gets conscripted to fight in a war while Nak is pregnant with their firstborn child. In the fighting, he is seriously wounded and gets nursed back to health in a military hospital in Bangkok. Meanwhile, lonely and pining for word of her missing husband, Nak and their child both die during a difficult childbirth. Once Mak heals from his wounds and returns home, however, he finds his loving wife and child waiting for him as if nothing has happened. His neighbors try to warn him that he is living with a ghost, but at first Mak doesn’t believe them and one by one are those who try to tell him the truth are all killed under eerie circumstances. Eventually he is convinced of the truth… and with the help of a Buddhist monk puts his wife and child’s spirits to rest. At least that’s how it usually goes….. ;)

This time out… our story, as directed by Banjong Pisanthanaku, sticks pretty much to that general plan, but there’s a lot less horror going on here and a lot more comedy to help frame the tale of undying love that knows no limits… even the eternal barrier of death itself. Our heroes aren’t really Nak (played by Davika Hoorne) and Mak (played by Mario Maurer) however… instead this version revolves more around four of Mak’s friends, army buddies who return with him from the war, and who spend the bulk of our film playing “Abbott and Costello” meet “Laurel and Hardy” in the haunted village. They provide most of the laughs, alternating between lusting after their friend’s very pretty wife and being terrified by her once they figure out she’s now one of the “living impaired”.

Those four guys… Aey (played by Kantapat Permpoonpatcharasuk), Ter (played by Nuttapong Chartpong), Shin (played by Wiwat Kongrasri), and Puak (played by Pongsathorn Jongwilak) eat up a lot of our film’s run-time with their antics, mostly the broad physical stuff and potty humor that Thai audiences love. Mind you… it is all entertaining in that low brow way that such goofy stuff can be, but for me, the story should have focused more on the dynamic between Nak and Mak… and that love that defies death to continue. That’s the story I came to see.

Not that Nak and Mak don’t get their time to shine… and the chemistry between the two works and works well, but it’s just so overwhelmed at times by the crazy stuff going on around them. Ahhhh…. and the jarring anachronisms scattered throughout….

Yep. For a story that is supposed to take place squarely in the middle of the 19th century, (Right around the time of King Mongkut… you know… from “The King And I”…) there are some truly out of place plot bits that break the illusion and make you wonder just exactly when the story is actually happening. Like the scenes of that nameless war…. where our heroes look like they are hunkering in the trenches of WW1 and where Mak treasures a modern color photo of his loving wife and rallies his friends for that big “over-the-top” assault on the never identified enemy with a stirring speech that draws inspiration from… of all improbable things… movies… quoting elements and themes from “300″… “The Last Samurai”…and “Rocky”… Yeah… I kid you not. Apparently “Rocky” had an early debut screening somewhere in 1860′s rural Thailand….

And those aren’t the only odd elements. The village has a local tavern structured like a modern Bangkok tourist bar and throws a local festival right out of a 1930′s American traveling carny show. Complete with shooting gallery, Ferris wheel, colorful helium balloons, and even a Thai style “haunted house” tour. While in Thailand itself, these might have just been quaint gags, for me they were distractions that broke the feeling of the period story, again and again.

But, those quibbles aside, the thing that does ultimately rescue the film for me, at least was the surprisingly touching way our story gets resolved at the end. I had been expecting the usual “the living must never co-exist with the dead” theme that ordinarily rules Asian film.

Instead… in this movie at least, love really does conquer all, and Mak and Nak end up staying together as a happy couple with a little ghost baby. Mind you… it’s one of those odd supernatural couples with a mortal guy and his magically gifted girl out of “Bewitched” or “I Dream of Genie”… but hey, it’s still a happy ending for our pretty ghost and the guy she loves and that’s refreshing. Yeah… yeah… Neko’s just that kind of goofy lady who loves some sappy, romantically silly stuff in her scary movies…. so sue me. ;)

I give “Pee Mak” 3 “Meows” out of 5 as a result. It’s an OK film with a feel-good ending, it wasn’t the huge hit with me or Carolyn that the audiences of Southeast Asia made it at the box-office, but then I have to admit, we weren’t the target audience for it in the first place. It entertained us, and the sad romantic parts did make me sad and a wee bit weepy.. and the funny stuff did make me laugh now and again. I suppose that makes it a winner.

I caught this one on the Region 3 HK release, given that as is usual, the official Thai disc came without English subtitles yet again. Grrrr!! Thailand… this wee lady remembers “the good ol’ days”…. back at the turn of the 21st century… when practically every Thai DVD came subtitled into English at that crazy affordable price you were famous for. I, for one, really miss those days… The HK disc is more than acceptable at right around 15-20 $ US, and can easily be found at the usual places we crazy Asian horror movie fans shop. This Halloween season, as long as that kind of odd mix of comedy and horror are your thing, it’s an easy recommendation for a evening of light entertainment. ;)

Naturally your favorite Catgirl has sourced you a Trailer, and here it goes! ;)

NAME  : NINDYA ARISANTI

NPM    : 12 23 082

CLASS   : A. 4.3

ALONE

            Plot Summary: After her mother has a stroke, a woman returns to her childhood home in Thailand where she comes face to face with the ghost of her dead twin.

            Let me first say that this shouldn't be confused with a Korean movie also made in 2007 called "The Evil Twin" because the two do bear a resemblance. From the writer and director duo of my favorite horror film, "Shutter," is this followup attempt that does a decent job at maintaining the same level of scares. Unfortunately, it is nowhere near the level of awesomeness despite becoming a bigger financial success. The main faults reside within the story as it follows the same approach and most of the same themes as "Shutter" but in a significantly weaker manner. The plot is straightforward as a couple living in Korea, named Pim and Wee, are informed that Pim's mother had a stroke which leads to the couple returning to Thailand to resolve various issues. The drama comes from the fact that Pim has not spoken to her mother since the death of her twin sister, Ploy. Pim and Ploy had been born conjoined twins, and so there is a lot of emphasis on their strong bond to each other; however something happened between the two leading to surgical separation and resulting in Ploy's mysterious death. You will notice early on that the story is presented through various flashbacks building up to the surgery, and whatever happened to Ploy, while strategically building tension in the present. The flashbacks do provide an interesting way to hype the mystery as you know Pim is holding back the worst memories as well as the truth. I should note that the many twin actresses, especially the one playing the ghost, and the lead, played by Marsha Wattanapanich, do a fantastic job presenting the many stages of Pim and Ploy's life together while successfully engaging the audience in their relationship. Speaking of said ghost, she does look pretty damn scary with strong makeup effects worthy of rivaling "Shutter." But while I understand they wanted to provide a different look, this ghost is not as scary as Natre, nor as relentless, with her appearances much more limited. Regardless, the ghost is most certainly the highlight and strongest aspect to the film. Anyway, it is established that Pim is essentially the good one and Ploy was the bad one with typical reasons for her behavior like jealousy, false sense of betrayal, etc.      I would have preferred more complexity to the dynamics of their relationship, but I understand the necessity to keep it simple. In the present, Pim begins to see Ploy haunting her while falling apart mentally from obvious guilt. Wee thinks that it is just her bottled up emotions coming out since it has been so long since she was home and decides to call up a psychiatrist friend. At first Pim is reluctant, but after accidentally running over their dog and seeing more of Ploy, she reconsiders. At this point we learn that Wee was the wedge that drove the two sisters apart because he liked Pim and obviously Ploy was jealous because she also liked Wee. The closer Pim and Wee became, the more enraged Ploy became trying to sabotage their efforts to be together. The final event to divide the two was a picture Wee drew of Pim "alone." I'll be honest, some of Wee's actions seem messed up considering he knew how jealous Ploy was, but they were just teens with a crush at the time so I can forgive his idiocy; likewise, Wee does feel guilty he drove the two apart since he was apparently oblivious to the turmoil in the girls' relationship. At this point, Pim is starting to go off the deep-end at the exact moment the mother awakens long enough to tell Wee a little revelation. Okay, this twist is not surprising in the least, you could see it coming a million miles away, and there are way too many clues given in the film that I find it hard to imagine someone would not figure this out: Pim is actually Ploy, and Ploy took Pim's identity to have Wee for herself. After Ploy went crazy and strangled Pim, the two had the surgery to remove Pim's dead body which led to her moving away, and later meeting up with Wee, all the while the mom refused to ever speak with Ploy. This level of predictability really hurt the film for me because it's as if they're beating you over the head with it all film long. Every time the ghost appears it is on Pim's side when they were conjoined, "Pim" is holding back the truth but what could she possibly be hiding other than this, she replaces the dog with the exact same dog breed and gives it the same name, her crazy tendencies aren't like the Pim we see in flashbacks, and just everything begs the audience to figure this out too early. Now that Wee knows this, Ploy plans to kill him because he won't accept her as his girlfriend/wife (it's never clear) any longer. Amidst this chaos, the house is lit on fire and the two take quite a beating until Ploy gains the upper hand which leads to Pim's ghost intervening and scaring Ploy. Wee drops a large cabinet on top of Ploy trapping her as he escapes and Pim's ghost holds her in place until she burns. The film ends with the two reunited in death at the same grave playing Ploy's favorite song. There are a lot of strong points to this film because it is scary and there are some creative scares even when subtle like "Pim" walking on the beach with a second set of footprints beside her. There is a nice flow to the pacing and the flashbacks do provide an interesting presentation to the mystery. The acting is strong and the relationship of the characters felt tragic and invests the audience. But the ending and twist were predictable to the point that it was detrimental to the film as a whole; I honestly would have rated this much higher had it been more original or less obvious at least. At the same time, it follows "Shutter's" formula too closely with the same focus on 3 characters: the oblivious spouse, the liar, and a rightfully vengeful spirit, among many other similar aspects. I hate to compare it to "Shutter" so much because that's not entirely fair, but it's necessary to address the high expectations one would have after seeing "Shutter." This is most certainly worth a view or more because it's a solid horror film with some great scenes, but be weary of the predictable twist.

Notable Moment: At the end when the twins reunite so to speak. That look on ghost Pim's face is priceless in the most disturbing way.

NAME : SEFTI JULIYANA

NPM    : 12 23 081

CLASS : A.4.3

FACE

Plot Summary: A facial reconstruction expert is haunted by a victim's ghost that wishes him to complete his work in catching a serial killer.

            I remember seeing the trailer for this film when it first came out and thinking it would be really scary. How wrong I was. The main problem is that this film is more of a crime thriller with light horror elements that could have been reworked properly into the story. It's hard to tell if the original script was independent of any horror elements and they were tacked on because it was the height of the "Ringu" ripoff era. Or, the twist ending was written first and a story was weakly built up around this ridiculous reveal; I find it hard to believe this film could have come into existence outside of those two scenarios. At the same time, the film is unable to create a competent crime/mystery nor deliver any scares which is a shame because the ghost did look pretty creepy. The story can get needlessly convoluted so I will try and simplify it to only focus on what's important. An expert on reconstructing the faces of unidentifiable murder victims, named Hyun-min, has decided to quit his job so he can focus on his ailing daughter and because his wife died recently and because he's a big bitch. Not making Hyun-min more interesting and not giving him a personality beyond worrisome father was a big mistake. What drives this guy, how did he get into this work, and why is he even in this field if he hardly seems to care about the victims? We never learn a thing about this guy even though he should be interesting as hell. But who cares, there is some serial killer soaking all his victims in acid leaving only the bones behind which is where Hyun-min comes into play. An amateur in the facial reconstruction vocation, Sun-young, delivers the most recent skull to Hyun-min and tries to encourage him regardless of his douchebag ways. Even though there were random scenes of Hyun-min's daughter being haunted by some ghost, it's not until the skull is delivered that Hyun-min finds himself seeing visions and having nightmares surrounding the ghost. Basically, we get the vibe, and so does Hyun-min, that he is being prodded to continue his work and bring closure to the murder victims. I can understand the ghost haunting Hyun-min somewhat, even though I'm sure there's other people that could do the job, but why would the ghost haunt the daughter when she's just a dying little girl? And why wouldn't you just haunt the damn killer?! The motives of this ghost are hazy mostly for contrivance's sake. It's as if they realized, hey, we haven't had a scary scene for a while, let's make the ghost pop up for no reason! We never even get a good look at the ghost which is connected to the nonsensical twist that also explains why the ghost haunts the daughter. The majority of the film there is only one suspect, the daughter's doctor, who does appear overly suspicious which means he's obviously not the killer! It doesn't take much to realize that the daughter had a heart transplant and received the organ from the ghost at the behest of the killer. So Sun-young helps Hyun-min finish the skull only for it to not connect to the plot of the movie?! I'm still trying to figure that one out. Let me say this now, so many of these stupid moments will be exasperated to infinity once I explain what's really going on because it's just so dumb. After pointlessly building an unrealistic love interest out of Sun-young, Hyun-min eventually has a vision of where the latest victim is buried and personally retrieves the skull. Since the makers knew explaining to the police how the hell Hyun-min knew the location of the body would make him look suspicious, they simply don't bother to address it! That red herring doctor is found dead and they realize he must have been working with someone to harvest the organs. There are lots of background characters introduced here and there that we see one time at best and one of them turns out to be the killer; his motive is some bull shit about his son died from this rare disease that Hyun-min's daughter has and so he's killing people to save others? Yeah, not the best of motives. Anyway, he's just some guy who took Sun-young's photo one time at a bar...but, wait, Sun-young knows the killer?! The film thinks it's clever showing us a shot of Sun-young about the be killed by the killer right at the moment Hyun-min finishes the last skull. Oh shit, the skull belongs to Sun-young! Oh my god, no, she's the ghost! Ahh, so shocking...oh wait, total bull shit! So the ghost has been Sun-young all along which is really, really fucking retarded and does not follow any sense of logic anyone could conceivably come up with. We see her interacting with the world on multiple occasions. Even if it were all in Hyun-min's head, why would she put on the charade of having an umbrella, knocking at the door, etc.? Where did she get the first skull from? Pulled that one out of her ass, and why didn't that damn skull have any connection to the movie?! Besides, if she can take a normal form and semi-romance Hyun-min, why the hell does she keep taking the form of a creepy ghost and freaking him and his daughter out practically giving the daughter a heart attack to boot?! And if she has this much power, why can't she just fuck with the killer?! AND how fucking convenient that in life she was trying to get into the same job as Hyun-min and gets killed by a killer that requires that exact job to solve the crime who coincidentally helped Hyun-min's daughter and both had the same rare disease! Oh god damn it! Like I said, almost every single aspect to the story relies on this reveal which makes no sense. Ugh, whatever, Hyun-min gets his candy ass caught by the killer, they fight, and right when Hyun-min is going to die, Sun-young's ghost (finally!) scares the killer allowing the police enough time to shoot him. The film ends with the daughter healthy now and Hyun-min hears some recording from Sun-young she left him...oh good lord, I give up. It's as if they said let's remove all the subtly from "The Sixth Sense" and combine it with the most generic serial killer imaginable. Okay, this film did get a few things right with decent acting, a scary ghost, Sun-young is cute, the facial reconstruction angle was creative, and the mystery is somewhat intriguing, but it is impossible to ignore the ending and the sheer shenanigans of the plot in retrospective. The production value was high but overall the film is mediocre with one of the worst twists I've ever watched. When this film first came out I wasn't as infuriated by the ending as I am now, but that's because this time I followed the plot specifically trying to piece this ending into the story and it does not fucking fit! I'll be generous and say it's maybe worth a view, but don't re-watch it or only regret and frustration you will find.