THEM (2006) - French horror filmed in Romania, Poster and Trailer

THEM (2007, France, aka ‘ILS’)

On region 3 PAL DVD from Thailand (PMEG)

There haven’t been many French horror films until recently. This is one of the ‘new wave’ of hard-hitting and effective genre movies from France, like Switchblade Romance (aka Haute Tension), The Ordeal (Calvaire) and even Brotherhood of the Wolf. It’s received quite a decent release worldwide, considering it’s a low-budget movie shot on video, and has been reviewed extensively, but I’d like to add the following…

A French couple have settled down in a large remote house on the outskirts of Bucharest, while teaching French in a Romanian high school. Little do they know, there’s been a mysterious murder nearby, and at night it’s their turn to be victimised, frightened, then hunted…

The opening scene, of a car breaking down on a forest road, builds nicely to a somewhat cliched climax. Read more …

Nightmare Detective (2006) a Tsukamoto Classic, Poster and Trailer

NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE (2006, Japan, on IMDB as Akumu Tantei) Region 2 PAL Italian DVD (RaroVideo)

The films of director Shinya Tsukamoto are always interesting but usually challenging. His two films of Tetsuo the Iron Man were extreme and disorientating, Haze was short and experimental, Hiruko the Goblin and Gemini bizarre and surreal.

Nightmare Detective appears to be his most mainstream, high profile project. A short plot summary looks accessible enough - a psychic who can enter other people’s dreams doing battle with a nightmare killer. This sounds familiar, in the vein of the many Elm Streets, but appearances can be deceptive…

Detective Keiko Kirishima (played by Hitomi) arrives on the scene of a suicide, but is suspicious that it’s not as it appears. When the case is linked to another violent and bloody death, her colleagues are astonished when she insists that it’s not only a murder case, but also in need of a psychic to solve it. Read more …

The Doll Master (2004) - Mainstream Korean Horror, Poster and Trailer

The Doll Master (2004, South Korea, IMDB: Inhyeongsa)

Not all Korean horrors are gloomy, extreme, perplexing and non-linear. This is a good-looking mainstream horror full of good-looking actors. My only reservation is that while it doesn’t pull its punches, it should have been much, much creepier…

Plotwise, if Stuart Gordon had made Dolls (1987) in South East Asia, he’d probably have ended up with something very similar to this.

It’s also surprising that nothing similar has been made in Japan, where doll mania is regularly the rage. Life-size adult dolls with full wardrobes are on sale as companionship surrogates, highly sophisticated sex dolls can also be tailor-made, girls dress like dolls, people collect dolls, and then there’s the nation’s obsession with lifelike robots… Read more …

Junk: Shiryo gari (Japanese) 2000, Poster, Synopsis, Plot and Trailer

Aka: Junk: Shiryo-gari | Junk - Everybody Fights
Year: 2000
Directed: Atsushi Muroga
Genre: Horror
Runtime: 01:23
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Cast: Kaori Shimamura, Yuji Kishimoto, Shu Ehara, Tate Gouta, Nobuyuki Asano
IMDB: Junk: Shiryo-gari

Synopsis / Plot

Four crooks rob a jewelery shop, then head for an abandoned factory where they plan to fence the goods to the Yakuza. Unfortunately, their chosen location happens to be the same place where American scientists had previously experimented on resurrecting the dead. Read more …

Harakiri - Onna Harakiri Sakuhinshu (2009) Poster Synopsis Upcoming Horror Movie

Attired in their favorite fetish wear, hot-blooded Japanese ultra vixens perform the most masochistic acts of self-sacrifice and submission. The traditional oriental art of Harakiri…Violating their young bodies in ritual self-immolation, they plunge razor-edged blades into their soft, naked flesh. A sea of sweet, red blood cascades as their all too brief lives ebb, and death embraces them.

Beranak Dalam Kubur (2007)

Beranak Dalam Kubur (2007)

Jessy, Jovan, Titaz and Kalia and Brian are the doctoral students who are make friends. They are doing the observatory for their anatomy task in a hospital. They found a closed and abandoned morgue. It closed forever and there is a new morgue. Because of Brian and Kaila’s act, the five of them get into the room. But no one knows that the room that looks empty apparently kept a woman’s dead body that hide behind a separator. It is hide intentionally.

Since get into the room, they all going through some kind of hallucination things that threaten their lives. First, when Titaz, Johan, Brian, Kaila and Jessy sneak into an anatomy practical room, Titaz was surprised by the awakening of a cadaver dead body. The dead body is the tool for the anatomy practical class. When it arising, it looks like the dead body that found in the abandoned room. Titaz shock. Her friends don’t believe her. Read more …

Loner (Korean) 2008 - Synopsis, Poster, Trailer Asian Horror Movie

Aka: Woteoli | Alone | Ophaned | Hikokomori
Year: 2008
Directed: Park Jae-sik
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Runtime: 01:44:27
Country: Korea
Language: Korean
Subtitles: English/Korean
Cast: Ko Eun-ah, Chae Min-seo, Jeong Yoo-seok, Jeong Yeong-sook, Lim Dae-ho, Lee Da-in

Synopsis / Plot

Ha-Jung and Soon-na are best friends & students at the same school. However, while Soon-na has a happy and outgoing personality, Ha-Jung is often the target of extreme cruelty at the hands of bullies. After her best friend’s strange suicide, the formerly bright and outgoing Soon-na locks herself in her room and becomes a recluse. She refuses to open the door to anyone and acts as if someone is in the room with her. Her personality degrades to the point where her uncle turns to his fiancee, a psychiatrist who specializes in hikikomori, for help. Hikikomori is a term to describe those who shut themselves off from society in reaction to trauma, usually by confining themselves to a room and avoiding human contact. The outcome is terrifying as supernatural occurrences collide with dark family secrets. Read more …