The Haunted House Project

Rating: 6.8/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Horror

It has been a long while since I've blogged about a "true" horror movie (have been avoiding them) so here goes... Many have been led to a haunted house standing at the outskirts of Korea, be it out of curiosity, satisfaction or exploration, they were all drawn by the alluring temptation to document the spirits lingering at that place.

Perhaps the greatest goof about the movie is that it's not even a house in the first place.. but an old abandaned cookie factory and it's surrounding buildings... squatters and entertainment centre if I didn't remember it wrongly. We are taken on a documentary style journey to the haunted house together with a crew of 6 people, including a camera man, a director, the sound girl and 3 other paranormal seeking enthusiasts.

Their camera footage was supposed to be recovered years later and what we will be watching is their footage... similar to Blaire Witch Project and Haunted Changi, just that it's a movie made in Korea. Haven't caught the latter, but told myself to stay away from such styles of movies since they would evidently result in nauseousness... which it did. So for those who can't stomach shaky video-caming, you'll probably want to stay away from this.

The opening scene was quite engaging, where they actually showed footage from another group of "explorers". But confused the entire development a little since there wasn't any explanation about it. Then it moved on to the "interviews" which looked authentic. Truth be told, I went there hoping it was based on a true story... the development and the lead up almost convinced me of that only until during the middle of the movie where things really went out-of-hand. It became ridiculously horrifying which took away the realism of the entire movie. *spoilers ahead* For those of you who have caught it, I'm referring particularly to the scene where the girl was bending her back backwards and forward but yet the camera man was still so calm to be filming the entire scene and didn't offer a hand. From then on, every scary event which popped up just took away the realism bit by bit. The ending was the ultimate killer. Ri-Di-Cu-Lous.

I'm demeriting the movie because of that because if you want to make a realistic movie, I believe one should stay true to it throughout. It's almost like watching Earth and having the animals talk at the end of the movie. The other flaw about the movie was the music which played up before each terrifying encounter... well, if it's supposed to be "real", there shouldn't be music in the first place...

But it wasn't that bad a movie, the buildup was engaging and like all documentary-styled, first person camera shot movies, the mood was intense. I was gasping at every restricted peripheral shot I experienced. Casting delievered a good performance but they were "wiped" out too quickly towards the end... which kinda detached me from the characters after all that hard earned character buildup at the start.

Pretty decent movie, scare factor prolly rates 7.5/10 with a couple of unforgettably disturbing scenes. Good buildup at the start, but pace picked up too fast towards the end and the ending was rather crappy.