Thriller (2017)

I love supernatural films. However, I did not love this one.

What I Liked
The film was an anthology and the quality was fairly good. I liked the idea of the writer who struggles with writing, and the other man who appears to 'help him' write. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into it but it was a fun idea. I also liked the homage paid to older horror films (Like The Shining) (or Frankenstein) and the weirdness of some of the stories--they were very surreal/a little strange at times. This I all appreciated.

What I disliked
As interesting of an idea as the story was, I did not like the execution. The first story I thought the acting wasn't so great and some things were a little odd (like the guy who watches the shining in the pitch black basement of a hospital?) and the second story was a little slow.

Overall,
It is an okay horror film but don't expect anything like Noroi The Curse or Ju-On. This isn't really a 'ghost' story China doesn't really allow the portrayal of ghosts in their films, I think, because of superstition and censorship laws. This is essentially a psychological horror featuring stories where circumstance or events kind of drives people to go crazy, a theme of the film. In terms of tone, the only type of film that I can think that relates to it is something like Creepshow (Stephen King) or Thirst (Korea) in terms of oddness but without the dark humor as it is a more serious film intended for an older audience. Just don't expect the same level of story telling.

I don't think I would re-watch it, which is huge for me, as I re-watch horror films constantly. There is blood but really no gore and of course this is nothing like the very dark violent films you might sometimes see coming out of Korea (I saw the Devil).

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