Ghastly (2011) User Reviews

Unoriginal Asian horror, but slightly better than most of the crap

[ticalisoul · 5/10 · 19 January 2012]

Asian horrors have been done to death. Whether its a little boy/girl ghost, or an adult woman, they're always the same. Long, dark hair, pale face, walking around having spasms. It might have been scary the first few times, but after about the 50th movie, shouldn't the screenwriters take a step back and say "Wow, I'm an unoriginal douche, maybe I should at least try to think of something creative?" Alas, they never do, because the same old formula makes the cash. Being experimental means taking risks, and for some reason Asian cinema rarely does so, and thus "Ghastly" was born.

"Ghastly" is about a Korean boy Bin, who witnessed the brutal homicide/suicide of his parents. His aunt's family gains custody of him, yet somehow they still decide to live in the same house where the tragedy occurred. Great idea, right? A cliché set-up, then cue the nightmares and visions.

The lack of originality is pretty blunt. Almost none of the scenes elicit any fear out of the viewer. You can see whats about to happen from a mile away. There's a lot of cliché gory scenes which end up just being a dream, and so forth. The only redeeming quality is the two sisters. Both are super hotties, so at least you get some eye candy.

When I say this movie is slightly better, I'm mostly referring to the quality of the film itself, not the storyline. It moves along at a fair pace, considering its a little under 80 minutes. Some of the shots were done pretty well, and the acting was convincing for the most part. The main flaw is that the story is a carbon copy of countless other Asian horrors. I've seen so many movies with similar story lines that I can't even differentiate between them in my mind anymore. Thats how bad it is. Overall, I guess I'm not slamming this movie as much as I'm slamming Asian horror cinema in general. This movie is just a good example of how lacking they are in the creativity department.

See this movie if you're a dedicated Asian horror fan, and if you like ogling at Korean girls. Thats about it.

My review, along with a well-deserved rant.

[ebossert · 7/10 · 2 July 2013]

I apologize in advance for this angry rant, but I'm really getting sick and tired of hearing completely erroneous "criticisms" of Asian horror repeated over and over again. The ignorant backlash against this genre knows no bounds in terms of invalid argumentation. It is ironic, however, that the most widely held and oft used criticism just so happens to be the most ridiculous and unfounded of them all. Critics blindly assert that Asian horror movies are "all the same" because they "always have ghost girls." What a load of crap. One would think that critics would eventually get the point, but then I read the comments for this film and can only shake my head in disbelief.

Now, is there a subset of Asian horror that churns out ghost girl flicks for a quick buck? Yep. Do these commercialized fluff pieces greatly outnumber other Asian horror films to the point where someone could actually assert a ubiquitous, industry-wide lack of creativity? Nope. I've personally seen over 500 horror films from Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, and other East Asian countries, but the onryo (ghost girl) shows up only in a MINORITY of instances. To make an assertion of "non-creative" trends, you must choose to ignore the bucketloads of crazy Hong Kong sorcery flicks from the 1980s like The Boxer's Omen (1983), Seeding of a Ghost (1983), and Bewitched (1981). You must choose to ignore visceral horror/thriller hybrids like I Saw the Devil (2010), Bedevilled (2010), and Macabre (2009). You must choose to ignore Japanese cyberpunk films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), The Great Analog World (1987), and Rubber's Lover (1996). You must choose to ignore any number of slashers like Evil Dead Trap (1988), Dream Home (2010), and To Sir With Love (2005). You must choose to ignore a number of Japanese classics like A Page of Madness (1926), Demon Pond (1979), and Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (1975). You must choose to ignore a plethora of short films included within highly imaginative anthologies like Unholy Women (2006), Ten Nights of Dreams (2006), Prayer Beads (2004), Three Extremes (2004), and Rampo Noir (2005). You must choose to ignore surrealistic entries like Spider Forest (2004), Marebito (2004), and Nightmare Detective 2 (2008). You must choose to ignore animal/monster fare like Tamami: The Baby's Curse (2008), Calamity of Snakes (1983), and The Cat (1992). You must choose to ignore wild haunted house movies like Hausu (1977), Sweet Home (1989), and Kill Barbara With Panic (1995). Even these sub-genres of Asian horror are insufficient to encapsulate the incredibly imaginative themes that saturate the industry – films like Uzumaki (2000), Strange Circus (2005), Hansel and Gretel (2007), Audition (1999), Gakko No Kaidan 4 (1999), Someone Behind You (2007), Abnormal Beauty (2004), and Naked Blood (1995). Yes, an assertion of "non-creativity" within Asian horror requires A LOT of ignorance. So if you don't know what you're talking about, you'd be wise to just shut your mouth and watch more of these movies.

Okay, now that I have successfully ripped critics a new butthole . . . let's briefly discuss Ghastly (2011).

After his sister and brother-in-law die in a nasty murder-suicide, a man adopts the nephew and moves into the house with his wife and her younger sister. The problem is that the little boy engages in some seriously nasty behavior behind the scenes that may be linked to a spirit his shaman grandmother worshipped. One might wish to write this off as another "creepy little kid" film, but the kid here is a vicious, manipulative, menacing little guy and – dare I say – a badass. He There's quite a bit of bloody violence too, mostly focusing on dream sequences, knife attacks and dismemberment. There's also a focus on internal conflict within the family, which raises the tension sufficiently. On the negative side, the editing feels a bit rushed at times, the dream tricks get repetitive and are somewhat cheap, and some of the character decision-making near the end is dumb, but this is fast-paced and easily consumable.

Passable

[plsletitrain · 8 December 2012]

It's a good breakthrough for most horror movies where the first act doesn't give away the horror. With this one, the director immediately started with a morbid scene which is I guess not very common. Seeing a lot of horror movies, nothing's different on this one. But I won't take it negatively, for I think that with a thousand movies getting released each year, everything will have some semblance somehow..same style, similar approach, same ghosts. Nothing can be remarkably different. So I'm going to critique the film standing alone. The story is not unique. Revenge, family, a cliffhanger..we've seen it all. Make up was slightly poor. Han Eun-jeung was good. Then again, I've always believed in her potential to act. The scene with Yoo-rin (Hyomin) in the end was messy, yes it was literally messy but the way it was arranged was just messy and ineffective that instead of giving the eerie/scary feel to cement the horror, I was actually thinking how absurd and unbelievable and over the top the scene was. But I have to give it to the kid who played the main character Bin. He was just cute and awesome! He was able to carry the movie, at such a young age giving life to a vengeful soul. I love him. Overall, this is just one of those average Asian horror movies we have. Nothing astounding, yet not below par either.

Hugely entertaining ghost effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 9/10 · 27 February 2017]

Having survived a brutal murder, a traumatized boy is sent to live with his aunt and uncle who find that his weird behavior is only the start of their troubles when it becomes evident that a supernatural force is acting upon them and try to find the cause of his problems.

This was quite the enjoyable offering. One of the finest points here is the fact that it features quite the impressive atmosphere to be found here that brings about a lot of rather chilling moments. from the opening moments showing the ghostly figure over the mother's body, there's a great unsettling nature throughout here that really makes for a strong chilling mystery that gets played out as the family slowly comes under attack by the different forces. The dreams of being attacked by the ghostly figure, the strange bumping noises deep into the night or the various hallucinations that result after encounters with him all manage to come off with a really atmospheric feel. Coupled alongside the switchover in the second half to more of a series of ghostly hauntings that come from a series of rather impressive setups including the woman's' freak-out in the hospital or the series of vicious stabbing hallucinations of her husband in the bedroom where everyone keeps getting more and more vicious in intensity finally ending with the startling shot of the ghostly woman between her legs in a truly chilling moment. Given that the whole affair is tied together between the ghost protecting him and the haunting in the house that eventually gets revealed by the police officers investigating the original deaths, their frequency makes for a much more pronounced sense of shock to come from these scenes with the continuous circumstances building up and the family drama being played out exceptionally well in allowing the film to build in some solid scares as well as some rather fun action moments. That ramps up the film considerably in the final half with the full reveal of his backstory and how it ties into the failed exorcism attempt as well as the hot-water attack and the stalking ambush through the house that's quite shocking and fun with it's brutality while also setting the stage for a rather shocking revelation at the end which comes across pretty nicely in terms of being a nice twist and getting the final brawl down in the basement that ends this one on a high note. Coupled with the nicely graphic and brutal kills, there's a lot to like here over it's few rather small flaws. The biggest issue here is the fact that there's not much of a real motive for what's going on here as the film doesn't really explain anything about why the kids' possessed or even what's causing it. There's evidence to suggest he did it before to others but yet it readily suggests that this is due to his presence in the house so the earlier attacks are thus confusing and everything is a jumbled mess of confusing motives. Likewise, there's little reason why this one waits so long to get the exorcism out if they knew all along so it's placement so near the end is a rather curious one overall. Still, there's not much to this one that doesn't work.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Language and violence-against- animals.