First of all, I would like to state that for the convenience of watching new movies, I have always been a paying subscriber of Netflix . Therefore, all Netflix movies are watched online and not downloaded.
Why should we emphasize this point? After all, it is always a bit awkward to criticize someone after seeing a pirated version, and it is easy to follow the truth.
and paid the fee, I feel more at ease when scolding.
Then, let’s get started.
Yesterday, Netflix released a new Chinese-language horror film, "The Curse". Before the film
was released on Netflix, Douban scored 8.0 as , which is considered a high score among Chinese horror films. Unfortunately, the score of
has been declining since its launch. Now it has dropped to 6.9 and . This is probably something many people did not expect.
This "Curse" is also a Chinese horror film that many friends have been looking forward to for a long time, and they all think it will be the horror masterpiece of the year.
You must know that as a Chinese horror film, the previous score of 8.0 is really a very difficult score to achieve.
Especially at that time, Douban's evaluation was also very crazy, and it was even called the top five in Chinese history by netizens:
Of course, this evaluation only represents his personal opinion, just like my subsequent evaluation also only represents my personal opinion. .
only represents individuals, huh.
In fact, the popularity of "The Curse" is partly due to the good promotion of the film. As many netizens commented, this is a commercial film with excellent marketing.
Therefore, the film’s box office performance is also very good. After checking the reports, the film has dominated the box office charts in Taiwan for four consecutive weeks. According to Wikipedia, the film's total box office has reached NT$170 million, which is pretty good for a small horror film of this magnitude.
The good sales at the box office are naturally due to publicity, and the most popular publicity methods that attract audiences are mainly two aspects:
First of all, the film is said to be inspired by real cases, which is quite attractive. Think about it, a horror movie is adapted from real events, how exciting it is.
Moreover, the original case was also very sinister, full of doubts, and bizarre twists and turns.
Regarding the case itself, there is a relevant introduction on Douban, and there are even netizens’ speculations on the truth of the case, which are also very exciting.
There are also relevant speculations by the author in the original article. If you are interested, you can find it yourself, I will not post it.
Look, this case itself is very evil. If it were to be made into a movie, it would really be very attractive.
However, this "Curse" cannot be said to be completely unrelated to the case above, and they basically have little connection.
So, it can really only be an adaptation inspired by others, but the filming is completely two different things.
From the plot point of view, the only thing the two share in common is the setting of a cult and the topic of someone being possessed by evil spirits. The other two are completely different. But as long as you only mention being possessed by evil spirits, even if this case doesn’t inspire you, there’s no problem! After all, there are hundreds if not thousands of scenes about evil spirits in horror movies.
Therefore, why this case must be mentioned in publicity is obviously for marketing purposes and to make it a topic, it actually has little to do with the movie itself.
Another point that attracts everyone is the trailer of "Curse".
I have to say that the editing of the film's trailer is indeed very good and scary. Netizens' comments are: the essence is all in the trailer.
In short, with these two tricks, "Curse" quickly attracted the attention of a large number of people.
Of course, as a horror film, especially a Chinese horror film, "The Curse" is still passable. At least, the director is generally relatively mature in his practice of pseudo-documentary horror films.
Of course, it is indeed not that strong, just like most of the pseudo-documentary horror films we have seen or introduced before.
Everyone is actually in a similar horror mode.
For example, the film will also deliberately use more shooting media: mobile phones, handheld cameras, surveillance cameras, driving recorders, pinhole cameras, etc., to summarize the images obtained by various shooting methods and edit them into the entire film.
This is also a commonly used method for pseudo-documentaries nowadays. It uses a variety of familiar media to summarize images to make the public feel closer. That is, using more everyday equipment and images to tell supernatural horror stories and bring a sense of everyday horror.
The audience will be closer to such a story, and there is a kind of panic that oozes from daily life.
Of course, this type of pseudo-documentary has to give up some logic in order to emphasize the sense of presence and recordability.
The most incomprehensible thing is that even though you have encountered such a terrifying thing, you still don’t forget to take a camera and take pictures.
This is also a problem that all pseudo-documentaries will encounter.
To give a simple example, in the early part of the film, the heroine found that the door of her refrigerator was opened, the milk bottle inside was also poured, and the milk kept flowing in the refrigerator.
In this situation, a normal person should hold the milk bottle up.
But she didn't.
She continued to shoot, watching the milk continue to flow.
What a waste! ! !
But why do this?
Because the director asked her to shoot.
So, in order to increase the horror, the basic logic was abandoned. There are many similar problems. This is also a situation encountered by many pseudo-documentary horror films, and we can barely tolerate it.
However, there is another aspect of the video that I did not pay attention to, that is, there are too many camera positions.
This is really hard to accept.
After all, for pseudo-documentaries, the single perspective presented by a camera can barely make the audience believe that this is the subjective perspective of the character.
However, videos often feature multiple cameras in some very private places, bringing multiple perspectives. Even the panoramic shots that look very much from the director's perspective, where do these camera positions come from? This is obviously not the perspective of the characters in the film, which is too confusing.
It will make you jump out of the mockumentary setting and notice the camera crew behind it.
Anyway, either don’t play pseudo-documentary. If you want to play, just pay a little attention to the basic logic of pseudo-documentary. Now it is a bit too confrontational.
This problem also extends to the editing. The editing is also intentionally fragmented, including cross-editing of two timelines. It may look cool, but it completely destroys the atmosphere of the pseudo-documentary and appears to be very deliberate.
If we talk about the characteristics of the film, it is probably that it wraps a very oriental and very local cult story based on the form of a pseudo-documentary horror film.
In a small closed village, a group of villagers who believe in evil gods and curses, including various spells, rituals, and gestures, may be very familiar to lovers of feudal superstition.
is like using a very Western and modern horror method of pseudo-recording to wrap up a very Eastern story of the curse of an evil god. This can be considered a highlight of the film.
Of course, those magic methods are nothing new. For example, some of the more evil scenes in "Spell" involve writing spells on the body, which are written all over the body.
But I am afraid that many people will think of Gui Zhihong's "Evil"
earlier and Masaki Kobayashi's " Ghost Story "
In fact, these settings are all of this kind, and they are not very creative.
From a plot perspective, "The Curse" is essentially a family film, with mother-daughter love as the main emotional thread. The advancement of all plots is actually the mother's attempt to save her daughter.
In fact, the setting of this emotional line is quite good, bringing some warmth to this horror film.
Alas!
If it is just such a story, including such a pseudo-documentary form, even if there are many regrets and problems. I would still like to recommend "The Curse". Although it is not that outstanding, it is at least a decent horror film, and it even has a few very scary jump scares (actually it is also in the trailer).
As a Chinese horror film, this kind of film is still worthy of encouragement.
However, as the title says, no matter what is, I don’t want to recommend this movie.
That’s because, in order to increase the sense of horror, the film intentionally added an interactive link with the audience. From the beginning of the film, the voice-overs of various protagonists chat with the audience and implant various ideas.
includes the curses mentioned in the film, including curse gestures and symbols.
At the end of the film, the character suddenly tells you that, in fact, these are the ways to curse you (that is, to curse every viewer). Because of this, everyone can share this curse with me... How to say
?
Yes, this is just a small setting made by the director to increase the sense of horror. After all, the evil god was written by the director, and so was the spell.
We all know that this is just a movie and it is all fake.
However, I still feel a little unlucky.
Obviously watching a movie is a very happy thing, but it has to be cursed by others.
is really baffling.
What does this feel like?
Just like when they were in primary school, many people may receive the kind of curse letter, which says how many people must be forwarded within seven days. If they don't forward it, the whole family will be in trouble.
Everyone knows that this is fake, but it still feels very offensive (although I have never forwarded it since I received it because I don’t want to offend others). Plots like
are nothing new. The Thai horror film " The Ghost Will Show" that year also had similar settings. However, at least the settings were integrated into the plot and became part of the plot.
As for the setting of cursing the audience in "The Curse", it is actually unnecessary. Even if it is removed, it will not affect the plot.
However, the video was added, and you don’t know what the director thought.
I believe that some people must like this "Curse", because it does have something worth saying.
However, there must be people like me who will be disgusted.
Then, you can't say he is bad.
can only curse secretly:
is unlucky!
