Help (Chinese) 2008

Synopsis / Plot

Jiang Yan, a psychology grad student, is growing more aware of her own mental status, as she’s been seeing ghostly images and hearing mysterious voices. She believes these eerie occurrences are caused by the spirit of her boyfriend, whom she has killed accidentally. Confused and hopeless, Jiang asks the professor whom she’s been sleeping with for comfort, but instead, the cold-hearted man refers her to one of his mistresses, Xiao Lin. This commences Jiang that they are all platting against her. Refusing to succumb to their plat, she tries to find a desperate way out by delving into a case study she has been working on. However, what she is about to find out is far more serious and complicated than she can ever imagine….

Aka:
Year: 2008
Directed: Zhang Qi
Genre: Drama/Horror
Runtime: 96 mins
Country: China
Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: English/Chinese
Cast: Song Jia, Shi Liang, Zhu Hong Jia, Liu Bo, Guan Xiao Tong, A Si Ru
Imdb: N/A

Acacia (Korean) 2003, Synopsis / Plot, and Acacia Trailer

Aka: Acacia
Year: 2003
Directed: Ki-hyeong Park
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Runtime: 103 mins
Country: south Korea
Language: Korean
Subtitles: English (Hard Coded)
Cast: Hye-jin Shim, Jin-geun Kim, Oh-bin Mun, Na-yoon Jeong
Imdb: Acacia

Synopsis / Plot

After unsuccessfully trying to have a baby of their own, Dr. Kim Do-il and his father convince his wife Choi Mi-sook to adopt a child in an orphanage. Mi-sook is connected to arts and chooses the six years Kim Jin-sung that loves to draw trees. The boy becomes close to the eight years old next door neighbor Min-jee and is attracted to an old Acacia tree in their lawn. When Mi-sook unexpectedly gets pregnant, her mother asks her to return Jin-sung to the orphanage, beginning the rejection process of the boy. When the baby is born, Mi-sook does not treat Jin-sung well, who believes the acacia tree is his mother, and in a rainy night he vanishes. Along the next days, the family becomes insane, disclosing a dark secret about Jin-sung.

Acacia, a genus of tree renowned for its durability, strength, long-lasting burn and cultivation. Alright, now look at some of these traits from an analogous standpoint when sizing them up next to the qualities that can be attributed to, and embody, a decent family. Do this and one will find it’s no coincidence the subject of Ki-hyung Park’s flick is a couple hoping to build a family of their own by adopting a young boy and the emotional obstacles they face to bring happiness under their roof. Ah – and let’s get back to the science lesson here – some variety of acacia are also known as being spiny and this film is certainly no smooth, care-free affair. Read more …

Zombie Self-Defense Force (Japanese) 2006: Poster, Sinopsis/Review, Trailer

Aka: Zonbi jieitai, Nihombie 1, Zombie jieitai
Zombie jieita
Year: 2006
Directed: Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Genre: Action/Comedy/Horror
Runtime: —–
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitle: English
Cast: Kenji Arai, Norman England, Masayuki Hase, Yû Machimura
Imdb: Zonbi jieitai

Synopsis / Plot

t’s an ordinary day in the Japanese countryside – a day of sightseeing for tourists, photo shoots for a pop-star model and her crew, routing training for a squad of JSDF soldiers, treachery for an adulterous couple and sudden murder for gangsters. Everything changes, though, when a UFO crashes and releases some form of strange radiation. Confusion turns to sheer terror and the grim, blood-soaked will to survive when the dead rise and attack the living in a mindless cannibalistic frenzy! Soon, the soldiers and a handful of civilians are holed up in a secluded hotel, surrounded by the zombie hordes. There are other dark secrets at work, though.

Read more …

Girl From Hell Complete Saga (Japanese) 2008: Poster, Sinopsis/Review

Also known as: ???? , Jigoku Shoujo, Hell Girl
Director: Hideaki Takahasi & Makoto Naganuma
Genre: Drama/Horror/Fantasy
Cast: Sayuri Iwata, Kazuki Kato, Aya Sugimoto, Hisahiro Ogura, Kazuhiko Nishimura, Saaya, Anna Odaka
Running Time: 12 Episodes, Hour long episodes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English Hard Coded
Link: asianmediawiki, Dramawiki

Synopsis / Plot

Somewhere in the vast sea of the Internet, there\’s a website that can only be accessed at the stroke of midnight. Known as the Jigoku Tsushin, rumor has it that if you post a grudge there, the Jigoku Shoujo will appear and drag whoever torments you into the inferno. Very little is known about the girl - all we know for sure is that she lives with her equally enigmatic grandmother, that three magical straw dolls accompany and serve her, and that whenever a posting on the Jigoku Tsushin moves her, she becomes the Jigoku Shoujo.

Oyayubi Sagashi (Japanese) 2006, Plot, Poster and Trailer

Plot:
According to an urban legend, there is a young girl with a missing index finger, and anyone who finds her index finger will be granted a wish.

Just for fun, six elementary school students play an eerie spirit game to search for the finger, only to find one person missing at the game’s completion. Eight years later, the remaining five members meet again at their student reunion, still guilt-ridden over the events of the past.

They decide to play the spirit game once more in order to find their friend. This time, everyone starts disappearing, one by one…

Horror is no ordinary game in Kumazawa Naoto’s Oyayubi Sagashi.

Based on horror master Yamada Yusuke’s same-titled novel, Oyayubi Sagashi (a.k.a. Vanished) is a creepy psychological thriller that takes the audience to new dimensions of terror.

V6’s Miyake Ken, in his first leading role, leads a cast of fresh, young actors including Matsuyama Kenichi (Death Note), Ito Ayumi (Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou-Chou), Nagai Luna, and Onoue Hiroyuki. Read more …

Thir13en Ghosts is a 2001 Horror Film Directed by Steve Beck

Plot

In the opening scene, ghost hunter Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham) and his assistant Dennis Rafkin (Matthew Lillard) lead a team on a mission to capture a spirit, the Juggernaut, in a junkyard. Several of the men are killed during the ensuing fight, including Cyrus himself when his throat is slashed. However, the team is able to catch the ghost.

The focus shifts to the life of Cyrus’ nephew Arthur (Tony Shalhoub), a mathematics teacher whose wife Jean died in a house fire six months earlier. He struggles to make ends meet for his children Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and Bobby (Alec Roberts), and nanny Maggie Bess (Rah Digga), but receives a stroke of luck when Ben Moss (J. R. Bourne), Cyrus’ lawyer, pays a visit. Cyrus has left his mansion to Arthur in his will.

Dennis, disguised as a power company employee, is waiting for the family when they arrive and enters the mansion along with them. The building, made almost entirely of glass, proves to be filled with priceless artifacts as well as Latin phrases inscribed on the floors and movable walls. Arthur and his family are excited to own it, but Dennis sneaks down to the basement for a closer look. Upon finding several ghosts there, he rushes back upstairs and informs Arthur of Cyrus’ ghost-hunting obsession. Twelve spirits have been imprisoned in the basement; the Latin inscriptions are spells to keep them penned in. Arthur initially scoffs at him, but quickly changes his mind when one of the spirits, the Jackal, attacks Kathy. Ben has come with them for a tour of the house, but when he tries to steal a valise full of cash, he trips a mechanism to seal the entrance and release the ghosts one by one. He later encounters one of them, the Angry Princess, and backs up into an open doorway, which snaps shut and slices him in half. Read more …

Seed (V), Poster and Plot

SYNOPSIS

After three attempts to electrocute, complete with boiling blood that steeps from his eyes, he’s still alive. The executioner, Warden Wright and the doctor collectively agree that the breathing Seed be pronounced dead. He is bound and buried alive. After biting and clawing his way to the surface, Seed, the bloodsoaked, enraged madman, is now bent on vengeance.

User Review
I had the pleasure of screening this film at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin with Uwe Boll in the audience to introduce and answer questions about the movie. This movie would have been good even without the explanations, but it sure didn’t hurt. All in all similar in spirit to the classic unkillable killer movies like Halloween and the later Friday the 13th movies, but Boll takes it in another direction. He has a point to all the gory depictions, but it gets a little lost along the way. All in all a great film if you’re a fan of serious gore. Basically if sick and twisted is your bag, you won’t be disappointed, but if you really want to be scared this movie just doesn’t deliver.