Still (2010, Thailand) | Rating: 3/5
In case you haven't been keeping up with things around here, I've been streaming a lot of spooky stuffs on Discord for spooky month and all of these entries were shown. This movie and the next three were unintentional foreign choices. I didn't realize what I did until the night came to watch them. This was the first movie for that weekend and I didn't know that it was an anthology collection. The movie starts off introducing most of our characters and then splitting off to their separate stories. The first was an emotional tale of survivor's guilt that I thought was pretty sweet. The second story shows a prisoner who is haunted by his deceased cellmate, which was initially interesting, but kinda bland. Next was a story about a deaf, mute drug dealer who has to deal with a customer who steals from him. His actions ultimately affect the whole apartment building, which was an entertaining chain of disgusting and ghostly events for everyone. Lastly was a story about two friends and a prostitute, who we see at the beginning of the movie, looking for a motel to do "business". Like most story collections, you're gonna get some hits and misses and I'd say it was about half and half...more or less. The strongest stories were "Flame" (first tale) and "Revenge" (third tale), while "Imprison" (second tale) was probably the weakest for me. Overall, I thought it was an interesting collection of ghost stories from Thailand, but definitely not the best of the best as far as horror anthologies go.
6-5=2 (2013, India) | Rating: 3/5
The first of the coincidental Indian movies ended up being a found footage flick; one of my least favorite genres. Granted I'm very open minded even if I don't particularly care for certain genres; also I didn't know this was a found footage movie. The movie follows a group of friends going a hiking/camping trip and supernatural shenanigans occur. Some things I enjoyed about this movie was the easy progression of weird things happening to our group of hikers. Yes, there are annoying characters, but I think the journey was worth spending time with them. I will admit that while watching this movie I was reminded a little of The Descent and The Blair Witch Project...in a good way on the latter.
Ludo (2015, India) | Rating: 2/5
There are quite a few movies with the same name and I found out through Wikipedia, while I was trying to read the whole story of this movie and failed, that the title is the name of a game created in India. If you catch this on Netflix like I did, you'll see that there's a collection of short stories coming out with the same title. Of course, neither of these things are related. Going back to this first Indian entry, I will have to agree with one IMDb user that I have like/dislike for this movie. I thought the premise was interesting as we follow two couples looking for a place to have "fun" and running into this creepy old couple wanting to play a deadly, ancient game with them. The visuals are definitely disturbing and the origin of the game is intriguing, but it falls apart when the story drifts further and further away from the present for that origin. That origin story felt like forever and when the movie decides to return to our main characters in present day, your attachment for them has mostly disappeared and they're complete strangers, which is unfortunate. This movie definitely had potential to be something downright creepy, but that detour to the past took way too long.
Pizza (2012, India) | Rating: 3/5
The last of the Indian horror got me curious what I set myself up for, because all three of these movies are different, but basically ghost stories. I know it's a staple in Asian culture, so I shouldn't be surprised by all the ghostly stories. The movie follows a pizza delivery man who is surprised by this writer girlfriend being pregnant. They disagree a bit about what to do, but the biggest issue is financial stability. As our main character carries on his normal work day, he makes a special delivery to a customer that turns sinister. While streaming this movie on Discord, I expected the story to go one way, but by the third act, the bait is swiftly taken from me and then slowly eased in front of me at the very end. I thought this was a fun little movie with some comedic moments from the pizza store staff. The twist was unexpected at first until you remember the core of the story, but at the same time it makes sense...mostly.
Coherence (2013, USA) | Rating: 2.5/5
For some reason when I see this title, I often question myself on the difference between this movie and Compliance. I don't know why...maybe it's the poster art or something. I have seen both and they're nothing alike and I hope to one day review Compliance during my movie review catch up. Anyway, this sci-fi thriller almost felt true to 2020 in some way; it made me nervous and amused simultaneously. The story follows a group of friends at a dinner party, anticipating the appearance of a comet. This spatial event somehow alters the reality of these friends and they try to figure out who belongs and who doesn't. For the most part, I was very on board with this group of people and was curious what direction the story would go. As talk of parallel universes and alternate realities came about, I became more interested, but somewhere in the middle it got...confusing and I became restless with certain events. Once the movie ended, all I could do is raise an eyebrow and move. I wasn't disappointed in the final act nor did I dislike it, but that journey to get to that ending was...an "interesting" trip. Like I said, I was down for the journey, but I started questioning the guide somewhere along the way. I'm open to watching an explaination video to convince me to like it a little more, but for now I'm not super crazy about this movie and I don't absolutely dislike it either.
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