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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2004
Country of origin:	Thailand
Director:	Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom
Genre:	Thai-style creepy duck
Starring:	Ananda Everingham,  Natthaweeranuch Thongmee
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440803/
Tagline:	The most terrifying images are the ones that are real.
Favourite line:	N/A - Subtitled

The Thai original.

The plot:
A young couple, he a photographer called Tun, she a girlfriend called Jane(!), attend a party and have a little too much to drink. Driving home, they hit a young woman standing in the road and, due to their inebriated state, decide to drive away.
Soon afterwards, trying to put the incident behind them, though their relationship now feels strained, Tun begins to notice strange shadows and streaks of light on his photographs.
Checking with the developer, the processing is fine, and the shadowing is an artefact of the negatives.
Puzzled, Tun tries to eliminate any possible source of the distortions, but the phenomena only seem to increase.
Then people start to die, seemingly marked for death by the photos he has been taking.
Could the hit and run have anything to do with the apparent hauntings?
Eh?

So, the writers have clearly seen The Omen, for this is the midsection of that movie - David Warner’s photographer character Jennings sees portents of those Damien is going to kill as beams of light developed on his photographs intersecting the body of the victim precisely where the mortal wound will be inflicted - writ large.
Ploughing some very fertile ground as far as Asian horror goes, so those expecting to see Ringu style scary, black-haired, bedraggled young women, with poor nail maintenance and suspect dental hygiene, will not be disappointed.
Remade as a Hollywood movie a few years later, this is far superior to that particular effort yet, strangely, suffers a couple of the usual afflictions that blight that genre, in particular the use of overly loud music to invoke dread. Seriously, I had to keep turning the volume down because when the music kicked in it was near deafening then, when it was done, turn the volume back up.
Lazy, really, using such a device – the music, I mean, not the remote control - and a little disappointing.
Other than that, this is standard issue spookiness, with some decent performances, and one moment that will genuinely make you think oh my fucking God, that’s horrid. Oh, and one really ingenious flash of directorial flair, as we see a man jump from a balcony then, with no edit, we follow behind the person who has just witnessed it to see the body smashed below.
Very effective. Very clever, too, as it makes you wonder just how they managed to do it, without actually killing the actor in question.
Bit it is Thailand, so who knows.
Bloody savages!
Decent Asian horror, this, but it’s no Ringu and definitely no Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara.