Ghost Month (2009)

When a young woman moves into a traditional Chinese woman's house to be her new housekeeper, the accidental desecration of a sacred ceremony to appease the restless spirits around her unleashes a torrent of supernatural visions and attacks which she has to struggle against in order to stop their malicious behavior.This was a surprisingly above-average take on the genre, much better than expected and certainly got a lot out of it. What really works well for this one is the insane atmosphere throughout here from the multitude of utterly freaky and chilling ghostly encounters. The type of set-up here allows for some really enjoyable parts with plenty of intense scenes throughout here which makes this one such an unrelenting pace, which starts with the opening here. The opening, which is the interrupted ceremony of appeasement, is a total accident as the sweeping away of the initial offering could've happened and the resulting ghostly interactions grabbing her and later confronting her by herself with plenty of ghostly swarms of tentacles comes off incredibly well as a chilling encounter, and when followed up with the skeleton sequence in the kitchen makes for a truly enjoyable time. The second encounter, where she finds the secret room all completely decorated with the lavish ceremonial trinkets before seeing the ghost approaching in the ethereal light with the howling voices in wonderfully atmospheric, a great sequence where they appear to torment her in the laundry room and a fantastic sequence where she awakens from a dream and comes along the series of ethereal lights and voices all come off really well with tons of enjoyable atmospheric action, plenty of ghostly confrontations to move this along. As well, the attacks in the closet and down in the basement all come along into a really exciting series of creepy, enjoyable action confrontations. This one also manages to get some good points in how this builds up the great story here by not only covering the actual holiday and its traditions but also in dealing with the back- story of how she came to be afflicted which is really well-executed and believable here. These here are more than enough to hold this up against the few flaws on display. The main thing against this one is the rather disappointing nature about the ghosts here where they don't really do much in the film on many occasions here, either by getting so little screen-time or generating little damage once they do. This one's reliance on atmosphere and teasing her in the confrontations instead of going after her to torment her doesn't give this any kind of activity for the ghosts to be out killing randomly and generating the kind of action for those set-ups in here. As well, the film's other problem is the inclusion of a really lame and absolutely needless subplot about a spurred boyfriend interacting with the family that really goes nowhere and features some rather lame scenes designed to showcase this which really tends to halt this one quite often to get this in. Otherwise, this one was quite fun.Rated R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I'm sorry folks, but I only just managed to sit through 55 minutes of this turd of a movie.Leaden direction, poor editing, wooden acting and pretty much zero thrills or scares. The storyline, if you can call it that, is so full of holes it would make Swiss Cheese hang its head in shame.I'm not into gore, I much prefer psychological thriller/horror type movies so I thought that I'd enjoy this, turned out to be a total waste of 55 minutes of my life!If you're looking for a somewhat original and well executed North American "J" style horror then check out the Canadian film "They Wait". It's pretty good and well worth the rental fee.

This is just a sloppy remake of "The Maid". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0474791/ . I'm all for remakes and having the American studios try to take an Asian film and put a twist on it, but this slap together drivel is not going to cut it. Come on people. Even though the original movie didn't have much in terms of top line special effects it was way better than this... OK back to the drawing board guys, find another Asian Horror to mess up. How about Death Bell? that seems ripe for a cheesy remake. For me i think i'll stick to the originals. It's a lot better and i'll learn a new language at the same time.

I stumbled upon this little movie and didn't have any great expectations as to if it was going to be good or bad. I just sat there watching and eating chips and I was actually pulled in by the story. See, I think I can relate to the main character. I was an exchange student in Japan and I understand how Asian custom can be a bit offbeat to Westerners. To watch this movie without knowing what the other characters are saying because they speak another language is exactly how I felt when I spent time in a foreign countries where I didn't know the language. More, I had one or two psychotic exes I had to run away from, so what Allysa is going through is understandable. The scares are rare in this film, but it was a good thing for me as I was alone when I watched it. This is kind of a drama with a horror or thriller element I think.