The Coffin (2008)

In Thailand, there are people that believe that is they lay down in a coffin they would cheat death and bring good luck. The bride Sue Wong (Karen Mok) leaves her fiancé Jack (Andrew Lin) in Hong Kong expecting to heal her lung cancer and she is well succeeded; however Jack dies. The skeptic Chris (Ananda Everingham) also participates in the ceremony to help his beloved Mariko (Aki Shibuya). However he panics with the claustrophobic situation and dies for 6 minutes and 42 seconds. They have weird visions of ghosts and strange things happen with them. Sue and Chris visit Professor Thanachai (Micheal Pupart) that advised them that they should repeat the burial to resolve their issues and stop the curse."The Coffin" is a messy film that begins with horror and ends like a soap-opera, with the encounter of Chris and May. The dialogs are confused and maybe westerns are lost in translation and difference of culture. The truth is that the plot is a mess and hard to understand. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "O Caixão" ("The Coffin")

Following the Thai custom to cheat death and rid oneself of bad luck, a man who lays in a coffin for an evening subsequently experiences a series of terrifying incidents.A Thai film, filmed in Singapore... I do not know much about Thai films or films from Singapore, but I can say that this is surprisingly stylish. I mean, am I wrong, or is Thailand a country where you can live comfortably on a dollar a day? So far, the film has received generally negative reviews, with people pointing out the obvious blue tint. Yes, the tint is overdone. It seems to be a growing trend in recent years, and I have not found out why. But beyond that, it is not a bad film... maybe nothing special, but not bad.I would not personally recommend this one to people, but perhaps if someone was really into Thai or Asian films... this definitely has a vibe that Chinese and Japanese films have. Not sure why they have the obsession with ghosts that they do, but here is another example of that motif.

If only because of its sheer incompetence to terrify at all.I'm not a horror fan. I never watch horror movies unless I'm forced to, because I know I'm going to be so scared I won't be able to sleep that night. Yes, I'm that easily scared. In this case, a friend was treating me to a movie, and she was a horror fan, so I went to watch this.Critics never spoil great movies because they're just so great. But they spoil the bad ones because it's so bad.The premise for the movie actually sounded good. It sounds like it's gonna be a hell of a horror movie. But the director failed to deliver. He only used the usual cheap screamers to try to "horrify" the audience. There was one good scene which actually made me hug myself, and that was when the main dude what's-his-name was in the coffin, and that girl was crawling up at him and he was having a panic attack. It's a real shame it took place at the front of the movie, because that set the standard for the rest of it... And the "rest of it" didn't match up at all. There was another scene when the main guy's girlfriend went into a cremation incinerator, and it shows the corpse inside hugging the girl while there was this sea of fire all around the coffin! You have to see the video to believe me when I say that the whole scene made me laugh outright in the (almost empty) theater.I can spoil every single bit of the scary parts for you, but I'm just too lazy to type out everything, because almost all the "scary" scenes were bad. This movie has too many tame parts and too little really disturbing ones. 3/10, because it has good picture and the male lead's acting was good. I could tell that he was doing his best to save the movie, but you can blame the director for making such an interesting premise so tame.

Director Ekachai Uekrongtham reunites with actor Ananda Everingham to move from the red light district of Singapore's Geylang back to Thailand to partake in the bizarre Thai ritual of having oneself laid in a coffin to get rid of bad karma. It seems that all the karma in the world are on a zero sum equation, and what you try to get rid of, get translated into unwanted supernatural attention and transferred elsewhere where you least expected.On paper and from the trailers, the premise is rich for plenty of scare opportunities to be milked. Alas the star pairing of Karen Mok and Ananda Everingham is too overrated, as both only share one scene together, and a short one at that. The story also seemed a tad weak and filled with too many draggy scenes which supposedly tries to build tension and anticipation, but falls flat on its face. And don't get me started on the dialogue, as it contains some of the most cringe-worthy lines that it's more interesting just sitting there just watching paint dry.Don't get me wrong though, there were still some genuinely scary moments, of just 2 scenes which almost guarantees your heart skipping a beat. But that's it. You wait for almost an hour for something to make your hair stand on ends, and they come fast and furious. And too bad that after that the entire film went flaccid after some solid spurts as it plodded along to a boring last act which tried to rationalize the strange happenings a little too much that it just sucks out whatever soul the movie has confidently built up from that crescendo of horrific scenes.Horrror movies are no stranger to Ananda Everingham, having been introduced to audiences through the superb Thai horror film Shutter. But unfortunately even his acting chops can't lift his mediocre character Chris out from the doldrums, who decided to get into the coffin to try and save his comatose girlfriend, but as suggested in the film but with the potential not followed through, the coffin used might not be a brand new one and could contain some unclean elements in it. While he doesn't have some of the scariest scenes in the film, what he did have was a scene quite powerful in itself toward the end to show off some of his dramatic flair.Karen Mok has instead demonstrated that she's no scream queen, try as she might. Her portrayal of the troubled Su, who fled to Bangkok with her wedding looming on the horizon because she discovered she's suffering from lung cancer, doesn't provide that air of vulnerability, and her alpha-female persona just gives you the feeling that she'll pull through whatever supernatural trials and tribulations the story throws at her. She got the luck of the draw though with the scariest moments in the movie happening to her character, but too bad these were one off scenes that became the oddity in a horror movie caught up with trying to be innovative, but yet negated by feeling the necessity to explain everything verbatim.If not for its rare handful of scares, some cheap, The Coffin should stay well buried six feet under, a pity given the premise that was so full of potential.