THE HOUSE - *1/2

Directed by: Monthon Arayangkoon. Starring: Intira Jaroenpura, Chutcha Rujinanon. Supernatural Horror. Thailand. 2007. Running Time: 109 minutes.

Release Date: 4th June 2012.

There are some things that Thailand excel at. Fabulous beaches, lovely people and wonderful food however it would seem creating an effective and scary ghost story just isn’t one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Far East has produced some fabulous movies over the years and many of them would make a list of my favourite movies, effective chillers such as DARK WATER or RINGU really had an impact on me when I first saw them. So I opened this up, slipped in the disc and had high expectations, on paper it sounded so good and yet it just goes so wrong.

My first issue is that it’s bloody boring, you end up not caring about what is gong on, what has happened and how the events of the past are having an effect on the present. At no point does this movie grab you and draw you in, you just drift off and even when you think it’s going somewhere it lets you down with its blandness. Maybe this is why it has sat on the shelf for so long and only now is seeing a UK release.

Next I have to pick apart the effects, there is no suspense or scare factor to this film and you have to question how it ended up with it’s rating when nothing about it justifies that. If CGI effects of vengeful ghosts are your thing then great, you will love this, but there is no real fear factor and no element of what worked so well in other Asian horror where sometimes what you don’t see is more frightening than what you do.

The premise of the film is a young investigative journalist discovers a link between three murders and the one link between them all is a spooky old house in a hospital grounds. Investigating further she finds the vengeful spirits then having an effect on her. And that basically viewers, is that.

Maybe I’m tired of Asian horror and maybe it is just a sub genre that is past it’s best, on the basis of THE HOUSE this would seem to be the case. In the time that has passed since we were first terrified by films such as RINGU and THE GRUDGE we have seen the ante upped by the torture porn style of horror or the love it or hate it handheld styles of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series. All of this leaves THE HOUSE feeling like a poor throw back to the glory days but it does nothing to reignite my interest in this style of horror.

I can not find anything within this movie to highlight, it has all been done before and been done so much better. There are countless classic Asian horror movies out there, go and grab yourselves one of these but give this one a wide birth.

Disc Extras: Just the trailer. To be honest, that is enough.

Kris Keogh

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