Vietnamese Horror Movie - Conjuring Spirit
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
If you are a horror fan, you would know that there are two things in this world which you should NEVER OWN:
1. Dolls
2. Musical Box
Nothing good ever comes out if you own any of these 2.. there would only be "things" coming out.
"Wait wait wait is this a chokeslam?"
Movie Title - Conjuring Spirit
Genre:
(Wind up musical box. Listen to the haunting music...)Synopsis: Take a listen at the musical box tune:
Basically, the spirit appears whenever the musical box is opened. And the main character, Lan, a 30 year old detective fiction writer, takes her child away from home and rents an apartment in an old building to start a new life.
Every horror movie begins with an unlucky main character, and in Conjuring Spirit, Lan is one of the most unlucky character that I have seen in horror films.
Firstly, Lan moves into the unit which is believed to be haunted. Then, she is given a musical box by the landlady. As more events unfold, you will agree with me and exclaim:
"HOW SWAY (unlucky) can she get?!"
Review: The premise of this horror movie is a cursed musical box, but I did not find the tune of the musical box to be creepy enough. The makeup effects of the "ghost" was on point, and there were quite a few scare scenes which I found to be very creative. I loved that scene when the spirit was holding its fetus in her hands, seemingly asleep/dead, and then BOOM! The whites of the eyes stare right into you.. *claps*
The Computer Graphics (CG) was pretty well done as well. They do not look amateurish or sloppy. However, the use of CG in this movie took out the realism of the story, which was a shame because the first half of the story plot felt real. The story was sucked into the fiction territory when all those shiny, final-fantasy-like effects came in and absorbed the realism of the movie.
I like how this film built up the character of the villain. Played by Hoang Phuc, he puts up a convincing performance of a cunning and dangerous womaniser and is able to make you irk at the sight of him.
His behaviour and actions in the Conjuring Spirit makes you wonder which one is scarier - ghosts or human beings? The amount of malice a distorted human being can possess might be even more terrifying than a floating, dead spirit.
The writing and directing is above average in this film. The pace was fast enough to make you sit on the edge of your seat, and slow enough for you to immerse in the characters' stories. There are also multiple plot twists that will catch you off-guard, making a seemingly cliche story plot more interesting. If I were to categorise Conjuring Spirit's genre, I would say that the first-half of the film is horror, while the second-half is more of detective-thriller.
Being Singapore's first ever Vietnamese horror film, you might thought that this is a Thai horror film, since, well, they sound like the same if you do not know Vietnamese or Thai. All we Singaporeans know are kup khun krup or sawadeekap.
Overall, Conjuring Spirit is still a rather good horror movie to catch, and a great way to reignite your fear of musical box.
Fun fact: The pre-production of Conjuring Spirit took 3 months, the shooting was done in 42 days!
Movie Rating (out of 5 Evilbeans):
(3.5)
Conjuring Spirit (M18)
Running Time: 108 minutes
(Rule #1 of watching Horror Movie: ALWAYS PEE before you go in)
Release Date: 14/05/2015
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