2003

Aliens walk among us. Or so Beong-gu (Ha-kyun Shin) believes. And as any drug-addled insane person would do he tells his girlfriend Sooni (Jeong-min Hwang) and proceeds to kidnap the man he thinks is the leader of the aliens (Yun-shik Baek). Then setting about the task of torturing the truth out of him.

First time director Jun-hwan Jeong takes us on a horrifying journey into one man's madness where there is no line between good or bad. He skillfully blends genre after genre like he has been movie making all his life. Although the movie does follow the time tested B-movie plot of "they are among us" it doesn't grow tired or stale from the opening scenes you are dragged into the 'delusion or is it?' story.

The visual touches are often stunning with some gorgeous cinematography. The budget for this movie was around $3 million and comes off looking alot more thanks to the great camera and set work. Korean film-making has come along way in the past few years doing things which Hollywood would never dare touch and this along with films like OldBoy is an excellent example of a growing movie business.

Just a warning the torture scenes are often graphic, although never gratuitous, they may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Pixar's film of the little fish that was lost takes the viewer on a marvellous journey through the gorguous underwater world created on computers. Often funny, sometimes sad, always excellent.

Kitamara pulls out the blood-letting stops once again in this samurai action flick. Stylised violence and sword flights aplenty string together a weaker story. Candy for the eyes.

An off-beat cop drama. Darkly humorous and the right amount of tension.

This rating is for the Director's cut. Which cut back on Elektra's role and put more emphasis on Matt Murdock. I would rate the original version around 2 and a half stars.

College friends Marie and Alex are going to spend some time studying at Alex's family home in the country. But on the night they arrive a strange truck turns and the man driving proceeds to murder Alex's family whilst Marie hides. The killer kidnaps Alex and Marie follows.

My main problem with this movie is that for the first hour it follows closely to the story of Dean Koontz's 'Intensity' with absolutely no credit going to him. And in that first hour the movie is suitable tense and scary. But High Tension's killer is a different kind of machine to the almost OCD killer of Koontz's novel. Here is a man who is just messy, spilling and spraying blood without thought.

It plays like a homage to explotation slasher horror movies of the 70s. The remote locations, the use of knives/blades to kill, the copious amounts of blood and gore. This is definately not a movie for the squeamish, the death of the Alex's father alone is uncomfortably brutal.

As it seems with almost every horror-thriller in modern cinema there is a twist. A big twist. A big dumb twist. Which for me completely changed and ruined the movie. Up unto that point the movie is an excellent example of how a horror should be. It has scares, gore and oddles of tension that all lead upto a moment that is ultimately unsatisfying.

Looking back it could have worked even with the twist if they had handled it differently.

No, no, no, no, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just wish it was possible to give a movie 0 stars.