SYNOPSIS:
At north of Thailand, a group of archeologists found an old
wooden box that looks related to spiritual ceremonies. On
their way back, the box dropped accidentally & black magic
unleashes, all members were found suspiciously dead.
Kwanpailin
who is a writer goes to Chiang Mai for her book promotion
and she brings along this wooden box. It starts haunting her
since the very first sight in possession. In a meeting with
her boyfriend – Witoon, Kwanpailin has hallucination
and respond with acts of psychological illness.
Witoon
is not convinced that black magic is involved. When Nida suddenly
got blood toxic, Kwanpailin is still not convinced that any
voodoo involved with her editor’s death. Once Aunt Sai
– the maid who kept warning Kwanpailin about the ghost
gecko – was found dead in shockingly horrified gesture,
everything goes irremediable!
How
soon will Witoon realize the way to help his girlfriend with
supports of supernatural power? Will there be any way to demolish
this irreversible curse?
MOVIE
REVIEW
We
hate to sound superfluous in our reviews, but we have to say
this: the picture on the cover of the disc of this Thai movie
is worth at least half a star. Where else can you find a cover
as, well, how should we put it, as creepily silly as this?
And
we haven’t even commented on the title yet.
Two
simple words “lizard woman” sums up about everything
you need to know about this 2004 movie.
The
story tells of a writer who goes to Chiang Mai to promote
her new book. She becomes involved with an angry gecko spirit,
and all hell breaks loose when people around her begin dying
in the most grisly manners. Soon, she becomes possessed herself.
In
our humble opinion, Thailand is one of the best countries
to tell supernatural stories about black magic and vengeful
spirits. And this horror flick does send a few chills down
our spines with its disturbingly grotesque images. Lizards
leaping into victims’ mouths, women screaming in madness
and vomiting some gross liquids and the titular “lizard
woman” crouched on a lamp post feeding on flies –
these are just some of the surprises we got from watching
this 100-minute movie.
While
this Manop Udomdej-directed vehicle may please fans of supernatural
flicks, it still suffers from an uneven pacing, and repetition
of scares which feel pointless after a while.
The
production values can be improved to make the scares more
spine-tingling too. Some effects in this movie feel low-budget,
and may induce laughs rather than scares. One aspect worth
commending is the movie’s sound design. Creaking doors,
beastly growls and lizard squeaks are engineered to good effect.
We
would not give a fail rating to this movie, because it does
provide a fair bit of entertainment value and some genuinely
disturbing and eerie moments. On the other hand, we also do
not want to sound as if we are fans of this mediocre production.
So
the three-star rating you see for this review is a combination
of a two-and-a-half-star rating for the movie, and the other
half a star for, yes, like we mentioned at the beginning of
this review, the outrageous disc cover of the lizard woman.
MOVIE RATING:
Review
by John Li
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