J-horror tagged posts

March 11, 2018, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Director: Yûji Shimomura

Writer: Benio Saeki

Cast: Tak ∴, Akio Ôtsuka, Yura Kondo

Cert: 15

Running time: 100mins

Year: 2016

What’s the story: Former special forces soldier Toshiro (Tak ∴) works in a small convenience store in rural Japan, caring for the orphaned Sachi (Kondo). But, dangerous enemies from his past, led by the mysterious Phantom (Ôtsuka), force him to settle old scores.

What’s the verdict: With action films arriving faster and thicker than kicks from The Raid’s Iko Uwais in a particularly foul mood, they had better come strapped with a good USP.

Re:Born’s is the close-quarter knife-fighting style practiced by both hero Toshiro and his most lethal opponents...

February 3, 2018, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Original title: Cô Haû Gaí

Director: Derek Nguyen

Writer: Derek Nguyen

Cast: Nhung Kate, Jean-Michel Richaud, Xuan Kim

Cert: 15

Running time: 105mins

Year: 2016

What’s the story: Vietnam, 1953. An orphaned young woman finds work as a housemaid at a large rubber plantation. When she and the French plantation owner begin a relationship, ghosts from the past return.

What’s the verdict: Derek Nguyen’s confident feature debut, the third highest grossing horror movie in Vietnam’s history, proudly wears its genre finery. But, amidst the J-horror and K-thriller borrowings it boasts surprises of its own.

With Nguyen permitting himself a healthy ration of spectral jolts lifted out of the Ringu and Ju-on playbook, at surface level this is a traditional tale of ghostly goings-on...

October 30, 2016, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Director: Yeon Sang-ho

Writer: Yeon Sang-ho

Cast: Gong Yoo, Kim Soo-an, Ma Dong-seok, Jeong Yu-mi, Choi Woo-sik, Ahn So-hee, Kim Eui-sung

Cert: 15

Running time: 118mins

Year: 2016

What’s the story: Seok-woo and his estranged daughter Soo-an take the KTX fast train from Seoul to Busan and soon discover they must fight for their lives during a zombie outbreak.

What’s the verdict: It is not as scary as the British rail service when a single flake of snow falls from the sky. But, Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan joins such locomotive nailbiters as Runaway Train, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Horror Express as a first class example of how to keep excitement and tension on the right track.

A zombie film by way of a disaster movie, main characters are efficiently set up while the undead apo...

August 31, 2016, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Director: Kôji Shiraishi

Writer: Kôji Suzuki, Takashi Shimizu (characters only)

Cast: Mizuki Yamamoto, Tina Tamashiro, Aimi Satsukawa, Masahrio Kômoto, Masanobu Andô, Rina Endo, Elly Nanami

Cert: 15 (TBC)

Running time: 98mins

Year: 2016

What’s the story: Two college girls unleash the dormant spirit of Ring’s Sadako when they discover the cursed video tape. In another part of Tokyo, a high school student dooms herself when entering the house haunted by The Grudge’s Kayako. Is pitching the two legendary evil spirits against each other the only way to survive?

What’s the verdict: (Franchise) vs (Franchise) movies are typically a case of “nice idea, shame about the execution.” Alien vs Predator, Freddy vs Jason, Batman v Superman… underachievers all.

That Sadako vs Kayako...

August 7, 2016, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

FrightFest returns this August Bank Holiday for its seventeenth year. And while the festival has been a mainstay of London’s Leicester Square for sixteen years, this time it is relocating to the 12-screen Vue Cinema in West London’s Shepherd’s Bush from 25^th – 29^th August.

FrightFest 2016 also has a new sponsor, with the Horror Channel appropriately now the headline backer.

But, while some things have changed, the festival still boasts the expected pedigree. Over 5 days 62 films will be showcased, spanning 16 countries.

Bracketing the festival is the European Premiere of My Father Die, Sean Brosnan’s brutal and beautiful feature debut – an ultra-stylish, uber violent revenge thriller that’s a calling card for Brosnan’s brilliant talents...