If you’re looking for a decent horror film to watch during days of COVID, Blood Vessel is a good bet.

The title is so good I’m wondering if the film’s writer and director, Australian filmmaker Justin Dix, who is best known for horror film Crawlspace, didn’t write the film around the title.

In 1945, survivors of a sunken hospital ship are cast adrift on a lifeboat for days. Without food or water, the small group happens upon a Nazi ship.

Deciding it’s better to be captured by Nazis than die to hunger and thirst (Personally, I’d choose hunger and thirst over Nazis) they decide to board the ship.

When they get on board, the ship appears abandoned, but it’s not, although these hapless survivors have no idea what particular hell they’ve stumbled into. Nazis are the least of their problems.

At first, when I was watching it on Shudder, I was annoyed because I felt this would likely be a rip off of Ghost Ship, but it wasn’t.

Instead, Blood Vessel is a fun film due primarily to its strong story, but it still has room for improvement in my opinion.

NAZI GHOST SHIP

The strength of Blood Vessel is its storyline with a taut script that moved well from scene to scene.

For instance, when the castaways come upon the Nazi ship, the captain of this ragtag group decides to board it because he’s in charge. Not everyone is in agreement, but he’s calling the shots.

What’s interesting about this scene is that it sets up all the characters. By the end of this scene, I know who is who and what their agendas are. I also like many of them and am now interested in their safety.

It’s easy to get lost with more than six characters to deal with, but at this point, the scene serves two purposes. It builds character and moves the storyline along. Blood Vessel never wastes time moving from scene to scene, so it’s never dull.

Just as they board the ship, the captain is killed. Why is this important?

I think it sets the tone and places a horror marker here so that the storyline doesn’t get too mired in simply advancing the story.

It portends bad happenings for the crew too. Also, it sets up a more exciting dynamic for the others. Now no one is in charge, and they are set against each other.

The other factor I liked about this film is it paid attention to details. Many horror film directors sometimes forget that the story should flow logically, meaning the characters should be reasonable and make sensible decisions.

Even though horror is a fantasy genre, it should make as much sense as possible. But that doesn’t always happen.

I called this out in one of my reviews – The Bridge Curse. In one scene of this film, one of the main characters lingered in a college bathroom after a ghost grabbed him from underneath a bathroom stall and seriously burned his arm. Any reasonable person would’ve run out of that bathroom screaming into the night.  

As the small group of castaways in Blood Vessel bicker on the ship’s deck, I’m thinking, why are none of them asking why the ship is seemingly abandoned.

Up until that moment, they didn’t have a good reason to assume it was completely abandoned. It only makes sense they’d immediately try to engage with a crew or at least expect to see someone.

But as if on cue one of them says, “You know what I think is strange. All this fighting and shouting, no one comes to see.”

This is a good point and one that had to be made. Dix didn’t have to add this in, but it calls attention to an obvious dilemma and adds an ominous moment for all of the survivors to ponder.

The film moves well from scene to scene, and Dix drops clues throughout, but not too much so that I’d figure it out too soon. At one point, I guessed exactly what was going on, but it was a satisfying moment because I had put these subtle clues together.

I also appreciated the film’s ending. Many stories excel with an interesting premise and strong beginning but get mushy in the middle, or it seems the director doesn’t really know how to end it, so it drags on or leaves an unsatisfying ending.

But not this film. It seemed like the ending was meant from the beginning and had the guts to be what it needed to be for a satisfying finale.

SOMEWHAT SCARY CREATURE

While the Blood Vessel story is unique and paces well, I wasn’t legitimately scared during the film – not even once.

Of course, I wasn’t bored and enjoyed the overall experience, but the lack of fear in a horror film is disconcerting. So what went wrong for me?

If you contrast Blood Vessel with a film like Host – six British friends summon a ghost on a Zoom call gone wrong – it’s easy to see why.

Because Host is so simple, writer and director Rob Savage relied heavily on every horror tension-building trick in the book with great reward. Through lighting, music, sound, delayed reactions and directing of the actors, he created a truly frightening experience. (Read my Host Review)

Blood Vessel didn’t do that as much. It moved through the scenes but didn’t maximize them for fear.

For instance, one of the scariest horror film conventions is based on the primordial fear that you know you’re in danger, but you don’t know exactly what’s going on. You’re in the crosshairs of a predator, but you don’t know where it is, so you can’t make an intelligent decision about where to run.

The combination of sheer terror and ambivalence about your next move is jarring. If you run, are you running toward it or away from it? All your instincts of flight versus flight are going off in rapid-fire, but both cancel each other out.

Great horror directors know how to leverage this fear to the point where we’re all squirming in our seats. I never had to stop watching the film or skip ahead to prevent myself from becoming overly frightened in Blood Vessel.

The film Scream employs this idea to perfection in its opening scenes. The scene’s star, Drew Barrymore, seemed to understand this and played it just right. It creates a satisfying combination as writing, directing and acting that all culminated into a perfect moment.

The best moment of Blood Vessel for me happened when one character was looking into a mirror. For a split second, she spies that which she is not supposed to see. Although the use of mirrors in horror films is as old as dirt, it still worked well in this case.

But after that, the film felt perfunctory like checking off a horror film to-do list.

Simply put, I wasn’t given time to be scared. As soon as I knew a character was in danger, the scene was over.

The other issue with the film is the makeup of the main monsters. While the makeup seemed rather expertly done, I think less would’ve been more.

I don’t want to give too much away in this film, but when the main creature finally showed up, it looked like a bipedal bat. While bats are basically flying rodents, which is an unappealing thought, they’ve cute little snub noses that make them look almost infantile. If you put that on a human with makeup, it doesn’t come off as scary.

If you take the ultimate scary monster, which is indisputably the xenomorph in the Alien franchise, what is it basically? That’s right – a bug. Now let’s look at another one – Jaws – that’s a fish. How about The Thing – what is that? Nobody knows. What about The Fly? Another bug. See a pattern?

It’s not easy to make a mammal scary because we’re mammals, and we have an affinity for them, but fish and bugs – not so much. Of course, there’s the werewolf, but that creature plays into another human fear – to be unwillingly changed into a monster.

So, if you take a human being and twist it into something disturbing like what happened in The Exorcist, you’ve got a more scary premise versus trying to turn a furry mammal into a monster.

Of course, there are exceptions. King Kong (1933) is a great monster, but I’m not particularly creeped out or scared of him. I had the same feeling about a film I recently watched called Monstrum, which I reviewed and recommend.

When Monstrum is finally revealed, it’s basically a pissed off Pekinese with a bad case of carbuncles and boils.

Although not visually scary, Monstrum proved to be an efficient killing machine. Its behavior made it frightening, and in the end, I had no sympathy for it, so the film’s conclusion felt more satisfying than it probably would have otherwise.

If the Blood Vessel’s makeup choice had made the main creature more human but twisted, it might have made a difference.

Also, the main creature served a purpose, but I never understood his motivations or how he came to be there. He seemed perfunctorily mean for reasons that I didn’t understand, so that might have been another lost opportunity.

A creature in a horror film is a character just like any other, so I usually want to know his or her motivations too.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I appreciated the original script and fast pace of Blood Vessel. It lacked some major scares that would’ve made it better. Also, if the main creature’s makeup had been less ambitious for the main monster, it might have helped too.

But overall, it’s a film worth seeing. I never felt bored or started flipping through my email or skipped ahead to see if I’d find better scares further along.

If you’re looking for a fun horror film with an interesting premise to watch, this one might be for you.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

RATING: (Out of Five) 

So I’m watching the first scene of Anything for Jackson, a new Shudder original film. All I know is it’s about two older people and somebody named Jackson.

So I see two sweet, thoughtful older adults in a suburban kitchen talking about what sweet, thoughtful older adults talk about in the morning when the scene takes one of the most disturbing turns I’ve ever seen in a horror film – or any film for that matter.

I thought, what am I watching? I paused the film and reassessed whether I even wanted to go forward.

Anything for Jackson is quite a ride – much more than I bargained for – however, not what I expected.

While it could’ve been better in some instances, it’s a must-watch for those who like horror.

A GREAT SCARY SCENE SET UP 

Older couple Audrey and Henry Walsh are grieving over the death of their grandson, Jackson. The pair hatch a diabolical plan to bring him back. This plan involves kidnapping a pregnant woman, named Shannon Becker, and satanic rituals.

The film has some great scenes. The best one, in my opinion, is correctly set up and executed, which made for a legitimate scare that lasted as long as the scene did.

So Henry wakes up in the morning. He reaches out to Audrey’s side of the bed, but she’s not there. He then notices she’s in the bathroom, brushing her teeth with her back turned to him. So he continues to talk to her about their plans as she brushes her teeth. Sounds like a perfectly mundane scene, right? Wrong.

As Henry is talking, I’m getting more and more nervous. I know something is off, but I don’t know what. I sense something horrible is about to happen, but I don’t know why, and I don’t know when, but I know it’s coming. When it finally pops, the payoff is huge.

Now, why was I so scared when nothing is happening? I couldn’t figure it out until I thought about it.

Everything was as it should be, except one simple factor was distorted just enough to freak me out but not enough to tell me what was actually happening.

Director Justin Dyck could’ve let me immediately know what was occurring, but he wisely didn’t, thereby drawing out the tension until much later, and the payoff was worth it.

Another strength of the film lies in its original storyline and its risky focus on unsavory characters.

Good main characters are basically decent people with personality flaws that hold them back in life. But the Walshes are bad people with evil intentions.

I believe most stories aren’t told from this angle because this tactic can alienate the audience and make for a bland horror film as a result. If I’m not emotionally invested in the main characters, I’m bored because I don’t care what happens to them. Kill them or don’t kill them. I don’t care.

But in this case, it works, but just barely. Fortunately, the film is in the hands of Sheila McCarthy, who plays Audrey, and Julian Richings, who plays Henry.

Both created three-dimensional characters that kept me interested even though I disliked the characters intensely at times.  Without the proper interpretations of character and nuanced performances, the film would have been a bore-fest even with great direction and writing.

I also liked the storyline as it kept zigging and zagging, so I never quite knew where it was going.

For instance, another favorite scene of mine was when Henry is confronted at his office by Detective Bellows, played by Lanette Ware, who is looking for Shannon, played by Konstantina Mantelos, now handcuffed to a bed in a spare room in the Walsh home.

It’s not a typically scary horror scene, but it moved the story in an interesting direction at the right time. Every moment that I became a little bored, the story went in a direction that made me want to know more. 

NOT SO FRIGHTENING SCENES

While I enjoyed a lot about Anything for Jackson, I felt some of the scenes that were supposed to be frightening weren’t that scary, although perhaps they could have been.

In one scene, Becker is trying to get out of her handcuffs as a handcuffed person is apt to do when she finds out something is under the bed.

Now, this is classic horror movie stuff. Great horror films have used the “something is under your bed” scare forever, just like there’s “something is in the dark basement” terror.

Poltergeist (1982) employs this technique to perfection.

The under-the-bed scene in Poltergeist is so good that it has its own name – the Clown Scene. If you mention the Clown Scene in Poltergeist to most horror film fans, he or she will immediately know what you’re talking about. That’s because it’s so effective, but that’s because it’s set up that way.

The scene starts with disturbing sounds off-camera. Robbie, played by Oliver Robins, sitting up in bed to see that his creepy clown doll is not in its chair. At this point, Robbie could immediately jump out of bed and look under the bed. But that would ruin it.

Robbie looks around to see where the doll could be. Since he can’t see the doll, it’s assumed it’s now under the bed.

Robbie leans over to one side of the bed, but he stops, and I think this is on purpose to build tension.

Instead of running, Robbie does the unthinkable. He goes to the other side of the bed to investigate.

As he leans over the bed and lifts the dust ruffle, the tension is at its highest because that nasty clown must be under the bed, just waiting to kill Robbie.

But when Robbie finally lifts the dust ruffle, we see – nothing. The tension is cut. Robbie is safe. But then…BAM! Clown doll wraps around Robbie’s neck.

Now that’s just good setup. We like Robbie at this point in the film, so we fear for him. We know he is in danger, but we don’t know how exactly. The moment lingers and lingers until the payoff, but we don’t get it right away. When we do, it hits like a freight train.

This similar type of under the bed scene in Anything for Jackson could’ve drawn out the scares, but it happened too fast, so the payoff wasn’t there. However, when the thing under the bed does show up, it’s worth it.

The other issue with Anything for Jackson is the ending. It seemed riddled with too many misdirections, so I never knew what was going on.

Instead of a clean, well thought out ending, it seemed rushed. I felt the final scenes were trying to do too much, and I never grasped what happened for sure or why some of the characters did what they did.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Anything for Jackson is a horror film worth seeing. It’s no Poltergeist, but what is really. It offers an interesting storyline that’s not typically done.

Most horror films won’t take risks, but this one did by focusing on less than savory main characters that depended on great acting to pull it off.

It’s no easy task to do that, so I admire the desire to push the envelope in that regard. For the most part that tact succeeded.

I wish some of the scenes could’ve been scarier by drawing out tension as was the case with the bathroom scenes with Henry, which was a great horror scene from beginning to end.

Overall the film moves quickly and makes for a decent horror film.

Rating (out of five): 

The South Korean horror film Lingering offers an apt title. It lingers and lingers and then lingers some more. Its one-hour-and-forty-minutes format should probably be cut by 30 minutes at minimum.

That said, it also offers an interesting storyline and legitimate scares, especially one near the beginning.

But its strengths are often canceled out by its weaknesses, making it a zero-sum game in my opinion.

A Stay at the Horror Hotel

Yoo-mi, a 20-something, is tasked with handing off her tween sister, who has no one to care for her, to someone at a hotel far away. Yoo-mi’s mother committed suicide a few years ago, and she’s never reconciled it.

That’s the setup. I think. It’s not a typical setup, and the dialogue in the beginning scenes didn’t make it easier. It might be the subtitles too, but I’ve watched several subtitled films lately as I reviewed Monstrum and #Alive, and I didn’t have a problem with the plot. 

About 10 minutes in, I was getting bored because not much was happening. But all that changed. In one of the scenes, Yoo-mi is driving her sister to the hotel.

Now at this point, I was completely lulled into boredom when one of the scariest and most effective jump scares occurred.

Perfectly timed and expertly set up, the scene is the best moment of the film. Some horror films aren’t as solid as others, but they offer one great scene that makes the experience worth it. I recently reviewed Z, a horror film with a flash-bang scene like the one here in Lingering.

I thought that if this film does nothing more for me, it’s done this and is worth my time. I think it’s this scene that got me to the end. No other scene compared but other good moments followed.

Other scenes had the same quality of surprise. Just when I thought the film was heading in one direction, it zigzagged and brought me to another scene that was entirely unexpected and quite satisfying.

In one moment, Yoo-mi transitioned from the real world to a ghost world. The transition worked so well and Yoo-mi’s reaction was so properly placed, it created another strong point in the film.

Over and over, just as the film began to wane, writer and director Yoon Een Kyoung would present a strong scene that was not only moving the story along but revealed a creative flair for the horror genre.

So what I’m saying is that Lingering had a lot of nice touches that I appreciated. 

Where Problems Began

While Lingering has a lot of positive elements, it’s equally riddled with drawbacks, many of which could probably have been avoided.

The biggest problem for me personally and the most unfortunate aspect of Lingering was its lighting – or lack thereof. It was simply too dark. I watched it on multiple devices, but it didn’t seem to make a difference for me. If I can’t see what’s going on in the story, how can I be scared?

More than once, I’d hear the obligatory horror crescendo signaling something heinous apparently happening on screen – not that I saw it.

I understand that some films don’t have much in the way of budgets. Horror filmmaker George A. Romero worked his magic on the independent film Night of the Living Dead in 1968. It’s somewhat laughable now to watch some of the low-budget scenes with the zombies, but because it’s so well directed, it hardly matters.

The second biggest problem revolved around the main character, Yoo-mi.

Building a good character is no easy task. If she is too perfect, she’s either unlikable, because the audience is jealous, or boring because she’s a caricature. If she’s too imperfect, she’s unlikable.

The Yoo-mi character errs in the latter. She’s supposed to be a sympathetic character, as her mother committed suicide, and life has clearly been unkind to her.

It’s supposed to make her into a cold character, but she comes off to me as almost callous at times, especially toward her little sister, who is utterly adorable, which makes her indifference hard to fathom, even with her disturbed background. While that changes throughout the film, my first impression of her doesn’t, so it’s hard to recover from that.

In many scenes, she offered all the personality of two-day-old wheat toast, moving from moment to moment in a perfunctory way. At one point, even her aunt said something like – “I never liked you. You always seemed so cold.”

That sums up how I felt about her too. She’s so cold, it’s hard to be scared because I don’t like her enough. If she dies, she dies. That’s not what you want the audience to feel toward your main character.

The Lingering horror scenes are professionally crafted but the pacing seemed off in places. It’s simply too long and the cooler scenes that need to be interspersed with the hotter horror scenes are too numerous and lengthy. Some of the softer scenes that usually build character didn’t move the story along enough, so the film dragged in places.

Boredom set in more than once for me, and I wondered if I should even watch the end. But again, a decent horror scene would pop up that kept me glued.

Horror films can be long but still effective. Consider Hereditary – the Debbie Downer of horror films – it’s ridiculously long at two hours and seven minutes, but I was never bored. Depressed. Yes. Dejected. Yes. Bored. Never.

It’s been argued it’s too long, and it probably is, but I think a film is only too long when it’s dull. Hereditary is not.

That’s probably due to good pacing and great acting that centered around engaging but flawed characters so that even when the scenes are cool, they are interesting and that moves the story along. Because I cared about what happened to the characters in Hereditary, I wasn’t bored. 

Lingering never built character enough to hold attention for long, so the cool scenes don’t offer much.

I’m ambivalent about the ending too. Because the storyline is well thought out and unique, the film’s ending tied up a lot of loose ends. But – and I don’t want to give too much away – it seemed like a cop-out ending because the main character had to rise to the occasion that in reality would never have happened. It seemed like it was just the most convenient way to end it.

Here is where I’m going to get a little petty – I didn’t like the hotel. The hotel was creepy but not in a good way.

It had no charm, no ambiance, no flair. Frankly, it’s maudlin. It’s more like an old folks home with rickety 1950s furniture and heavy carpet drapes that keep the sunlight out than a hotel anyone would want to stay in.

But I’m spoiled after the hotel in The Shining – a 140-room labyrinth nestled around snowcapped mountains. Now that’s a creepy hotel but in the best way possible.

Final Thoughts

Lingering is an OK film but not a great one. I made it all the way through, but there were moments when I wondered if I would.

The biggest drawback to me is the lighting and its length. But it does offer legitimate scares and remarkably good scene setups.

If you’re looking for a servable horror film, this one might be for you. Otherwise, you can skip it for other films that aren’t as long and better lit.

Rating (out of five): 

Let’s just say it. The zombie movie is the junk food of horror films. Think of the greatest horror films of all time – The Shining, Alien, The Exorcist, Psycho, King Kong…the list goes on.

While those films have been dissected for their insights into human nature and society, you can’t say that as much about zombie films. Like a slasher film, a zombie film is usually an empty diet that tastes really good.

That’s why I didn’t want to watch #Alive but had to watch it at the same time. Like a bag of Cheetos, I had to take it off the shelf and partake even though I knew I shouldn’t.

So I opened two browsers on my computer. On one browser, I started to watch #Alive on Netflix while on the other I began firing off an email. I thought #Alive probably wouldn’t get interesting for about 15 minutes while the obligatory get-to-know-the-main-character scenes rolled past. I figured I could watch #Alive on one screen while writing on another. 

But that didn’t work out. Two minutes, 30 seconds – that’s how long it took before this film took off. I know it’s that long because I had to backtrack the film.

Now a lot of horror films and TV shows start off with a bang. The X Files TV show did this before every episode. You’d see someone who is not the main character, and will never see again, get creamed by an unknown force. Then the credits rolled with that iconic intro music.

This film took a similar tact. It started out of the box, which had mixed results in my opinion.

I never did return to my emails as I watched #Alive all the way through without distraction after that.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, but I love horror. If you’re not a horrorphile, it might not make the cut for you.

But if you like horror, this is a decent zombie film, but it will be quickly forgotten as it pales in comparison to others in its genre, but it’s a fun watch nonetheless.

Where’s the Set Up?

Joon-woo is a teen, or perhaps slightly older, who lives with his family in a high rise in South Korea. One day, while he’s home alone surrounded by his video games, the zombie apocalypse erupts. He’s trapped, surrounded by former neighbors who now want to eat him.

At no point in this film did I feel particularly scared. By that I mean I never had to pause the film to collect myself or hide behind my hands. At times, I felt more intrigued than anything and in places, I did feel bored but only fleetingly.

I think I wasn’t that scared because the zombie scenes with Joon-woo never lasted that long. A zombie would appear rather abruptly, threaten him, and in most cases, the zombie was dispatched relatively quickly.

In one scene, a zombie gets into his apartment. I thought now this will be great because the scare is primordial in nature. You’re alone, trapped in a small space with nowhere to go with a much stronger adversary. The mere set up elicits sheer terror on an instinctive level. 

But instead of making the scene interesting, it’s never set up for tension, and when the zombie does arrive, it’s gotten rid of too quickly.

But I think there’s another reason. Remember when I made the decision to write an email and watch #Alive at the same time? I did this because I thought the beginning would be those perfunctory getting-to-know-you scenes. 

It turns out you need that mushy start. I think my problem was I never knew Joon-woo, so I wasn’t terribly worried about him. If he died, he died. What did I care?

He’s a two-dimensional teen/young adult, who plays video games. That’s all I know. What about his hopes, dreams, desires or his shortcomings, character flaws or unrealistic ideals?

The film gave me two minutes of lead up before the zombies arrived in his life. That wasn’t enough time.

So, I think set up is important in a horror film. If I don’t like or know the main character, it robs the audience of a key ingredient of fear, which apparently is caring.

Contrast #Alive with the last scenes of Halloween (1978). Because Halloween employs great filmmaking, the ending scenes aren’t just scary – they are torturous to watch.  But why?

If you look at the way the murders are structured in Halloween, the scenes leading up to the murders build tension.

Slasher Michael Myers doesn’t just show up and kill his victim. That would be boring. Director John Carpenter tortures his audience by drawing out the scenes. We know the victim will be killed, and we are left dangling, wondering when and how it will go down for just long enough. The wait for the murder is far worse than the actual kill.

Carpenter employs this technique masterfully in the ending scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays her character with everything she’s got but somehow never overdoes it. By this point in the film, I also like Curtis’ character Laurie Strode, and I desperately don’t want anything to happen to her.

Watching Laurie trying to escape from Michael Myers is physically painful to watch due to its classic horror filmmaking, where the storyline, acting and directing all come together beautifully.

Decent Pacing with Fast Moving Script

So what’s good about #Alive?

One of my criticisms of some horror films is the assault on reason. For instance, everybody knows you don’t go into the basement with a flashlight when you hear a suspicious sound, especially when it’s been established that your house is probably haunted.

Of course, that doesn’t stop anyone in many horror films. That’s part of the charm, so I’m not entirely criticizing, but it can be taken too far.

But I get it. The character has to go into the basement. It’s one of the scariest places in any house – dark, cold, cramped. But could you at least give me a halfway reasonable reason to go down there?

And I don’t care what it is either. If your hamster is in the basement, and you decide to save your small pet, so be it. But at least give me something. 

So #Alive offers moments when it’s clear the director and writers were thinking about how to get the character to do what they wanted him to do within reason.

Now, if I had the choice between being eaten alive by zombies or starving to death, it’d pick the latter. I think most people would. Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people would be like me. 

So it’s not good enough for a character to leave his or her apartment simply due to hunger. So how do you get him out of the apartment to advance the story?

After a few scenes showing us Joon-woo losing his mind and then something horrible occurs, which leads him to do something rash that happens to be perfectly understandable because of the setup. When I saw it, I thought, Aha! Someone is thinking here.

Here’s another example. Joon-woo is shown to be into technology, so it’s not off-putting that he uses it in the film to escape.

But the film does seriously depart from reason at least once. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have mountain climbing equipment in my home. The average person doesn’t either. So if you’re going to put mountain climbing equipment into the film so your character can escape, you should at least allude to it in a way the audience will certainly pick it up. Otherwise, it just looks lazy.

Another reason I liked this story is near the end it took a disturbing turn. I remember saying, “Whoa, this is sick.” If there’s a scary part of this film, it’s here. But again, it’s didn’t last long enough, and the issue seemed wrapped but too early. Still, I didn’t expect it at all, so it kept my interest.

Final Thoughts

I give the film credit for creativity. It’s not like a typical zombie film in its setup, and it did try to put a new twist on it. The ending satisfies too.

One of the drawbacks is it’s hard to make a film about a character who is alone. Joon-woo spends a lot of time alone before meeting another character who’s also in danger. That set up might have dragged the film a bit. It also lacked a proper setup, so I wasn’t attached to the Joon-woo enough to fear for him.

I also never saw one scene that blew me away. Some horror films are mundane as a whole but produce one unforgettable moment that knocks you back, making the whole film worth seeing. #Alive didn’t do that.

But for the most part, the film succeeds. It’s not classic, but it’s a fun ride in some parts. I never felt fear throughout, and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t exploit every avenue to terrorize that it had open to it, but it’s not a bad attempt either.

Rating (Out of 5):  

The best scene of the new Taiwanese horror film The Bridge Curse comes early in the film. Six college students are on a cursed bridge supposedly haunted by a rage-filled spirit. One of them gets left alone on the bridge – of course.

When he drops his cell phone on the bridge’s steps, I paused the film. I only do this when a scene’s tension is too great for me to bear. Unfortunately, the rest of the film didn’t hold that level of tension. Still, this scene made the rest of the film worth it for me.  

This Bridge Curse could’ve been a straightforward ghost story, but it chose a different path. Its story is spread out over four timelines – the 1990s, 2012, 2016 and 2020. This factor becomes the film’s strength and weakness. 

It’s not the confusion of managing four timelines that sapped the film’s strength – even with subtitles, I could still keep it all straight – it’s the low tension scenes, which could’ve been more frightening if they were set up differently. 

Also, the use of flashbacks further cut tension because I already knew how some of the scenes would end. 

The Bridge Curse offers some unique moments, which makes it worth watching for those who love horror. But if horror isn’t your genre, you might not appreciate it as much and probably should skip it. 

Some Scenes Too Slow

So I ask you – if you were a college kid who had just come back from a terrifying experience with a vengeful ghost on a bridge – an experience so scary that you ran away leaving one of your good friends behind – wouldn’t you rush out of a campus bathroom after somebody grabbed your arm from under a bathroom stall and burned his or her handprints onto your forearm? 

Exactly. So would I. 

But not this character in The Bridge Curse. Not only does he stay in the bathroom after his arm sauté, he takes a bathroom tour. Of course, bad stuff is happening all around him, but he’s not leaving. He stays and stays and stays.

The bathroom faucets are overflowing. Gee, I wonder who did that? Maybe the somebody who just gave you a third-degree burn on your arm?

Does he leave the bathroom? Nope. He plays plumber and unclogs the drain where he finds stringy black hair. Gee, whose hair could that be? Time to leave the bathroom, maybe? 

The scene was getting so boring that I began rooting for the ghost – Kill him already! 

So what went wrong? Not only was it a flashback, but the scares seem backward to me. I believe for a scene like this to work the tension should rise from low to high. 

When you start with a ghost burning your arm, you have to up the ante from there. The arm burning was the high point in the scene, so I think it should come later. When it’s first, I’m let down when it’s less tense from that point on. Also, the scene was too long for me. 

While I was watching The Bridge Curse, it reminded me of the Final Destination franchise. I think that’s because with the flashbacks, I have prior knowledge of what will happen to the characters. (Every Death in Final Destination Series Ranked)

In Final Destination films, people cheat death after one of them in a group has a premonition that they all were going to die together in a horrible accident. As a result, they avoid this horrible accident. 

But shortly thereafter, death comes looking for them and kills them off one by one. All the other five Final Destination films work on the same premise, if you haven’t seen them – which you should – right after reading this blog. 

In all the Final Destination films, I pretty much know the kids are going to die, but I’m not 100 percent sure because it’s not a flashback. It’s in real-time, so that creates tension. 

Also, Final Destination directors and writers employ creative ways for the characters to meet their demise, so I’m always wondering how it’s going to play out. That tends to build engagement and tension. 

The Bridge Curse’s flashbacks dampened the death scenes that were mostly mundane anyway.  

The Final Destination creators understood the limitation of their premise and accounted for it. In so doing, they’ve reaped the benefits for a franchise that has lasted multiple films. 

In fact, Final Destination 6 is in the works, I hear. 

One Great Scene and Ending  

Sometimes a film has one great scene that makes it worth seeing despite other drawbacks. The Bridge Curse paces well enough, but if it weren’t for one of the first scenes and the ending, it probably wouldn’t be as successful. 

In the best scene that I alluded to before, six college students are on the bridge to find the rage-filled ghost. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will tell you that I was truly uncomfortable during this scene.

It had all the hallmarks of a well-executed horror scene – a person alone in the dark, an actor who’s displaying agonizing fear without overdoing it and a well-written and logical scene with creative twists. 

As far as the ending goes, I didn’t see it coming, yet it made sense. I don’t think you could ask more from a film finale than that. 

I appreciated that the writers earned their money with this ending and didn’t give up as many horror film endings do. 

I often see films with great premises and executions, but the ending feels rushed or seems like an afterthought – as if they really didn’t know how to end it but ended it anyway. This film doesn’t do this, and I appreciate that. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, I offer an ambivalent review. I liked the beginning, tolerated the middle and felt satisfied with the end. 

If you like horror, it’s not a bad film. It’s easy to understand and moves well through the scenes. Many middle scenes are mundane, and I can imagine the film could lose a few people here. 

But the film’s beginning and ending are strong enough to pull it through. Also, it does try to be more interesting with the four timelines than typical horror films. But like I said before, it’s a big risk, and it didn’t always pay off in this film. 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments. 

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The Bridge Curse Rating (out of five): 

In the opening scene of British horror film Host, a 20-something types away on her computer in a mundane apartment. 

At this point, I’m not expecting much. But I wasn’t expecting much before. The found-footage film is called Host after all. Not Black Host. Not Killer Host. Not even The Host like a parasite. Just Host – like game show host or party host or web host. 

But that’s not all. Its set up isn’t particularly scary either – a Zoom meeting gone bad. 

So, I’m not super pumped. 

Yet 60 seconds in, I paused the film on the streaming service Shudder. Why? I’m squirming. I watch horror films all the time for my blog, so I’m not the most faint-of-heart person, but now I’m not feeling so good, and it’s only been a minute. 

Now not much is happening, mind you. It’s a young woman in her apartment who hears knocking – that’s it. The noise doesn’t even seem that sinister, but I’m still squirming in my seat because she has to go down the hall to check it out. 

And that’s the genius of Host. It’s not much of a film, only 57 minutes long, but it scares the hell out of you. 

The way I feel is no accident. It’s by design via Director Rob Savage. He uses a mix of macabre light, competent story pacing, slight twists and chilling sound to create a subliminally creepy feel that gets under the skin. 

Now I’m sufficiently pumped for Host. I unpause the film that all the way through did not disappoint.

High Creep Factor 

Host is about six young women who decide it’d be fun to have a seance over a Zoom call. One of them hires a psychic to guide them through it. It goes horribly wrong. That’s pretty much it. 

So, why did this very simple film work? I think it’s because it maximized all the tools that horror writers and directors employ. Lighting is sufficiently creepy. Sound and music are well thought out choices, instead of arbitrary afterthoughts. The script is unpredictable yet follows logically. Nothing in this film is wasted. 

I watch a lot of horror, so I’ve seen the typical flour-on-the-floor trick to catch an otherwise invisible demon and the almost-obligatory trip to a creepy attic after a character hears a sound. 

But the addition of the Zoom meeting was a stroke of genius. I initially thought it would be lame, but it actually worked well. At times, I felt like I was part of the Zoom call. Like the other characters in Host, I looked at my screen, seeing what they supposedly saw.

Also, like almost all horror films do, it tapped into the primordial fear of being left alone to confront a threat that’s far greater in strength than you. Whether you’re alone on a Zoom call didn’t dampen that fear. 

I admired the creative use of technology work to heighten tension. If I had to pick the scariest scene, it’d be the one that used video effect filters. That’s partly because I’d never seen that used before in a horror film, so I didn’t know what to expect, which made it creepier. You’ll have to watch the film to see it as I don’t want to spoil it for you.

Why Character Development Matters

So I’ve been referring to the actors as the characters instead of by their names like in my other reviews. That’s because I can’t recall anyone’s name. The film is not about characters. It’s not about plot either. 

It’s also not really about breaking new ground in storytelling. For instance, in one scene a character hears a sound in the attic and has to check it out. No, she doesn’t. No reasonable person at that point would check that out. But it’s a horror film, so she does – of course. And yes, I love it when characters in horror films have to check out that creepy noises in attics or basements for no good reason, but that’s not the point. 

My point here is it’s far more satisfying for there to be a compelling reason to go to the attic, whether it’s because it’s within that character’s personality to do so or some other plot device. However, while I’ve seen this scene over and over again in horror films, I was still scared for the character, so it worked well enough. 

That said, Host did break some ground in presentation, and it’s potentially why a short film like this worked as well as it did. 

By using the Zoom feature, I was not only scared for the character who is venturing into the attic, but I’m also drawing on the fear of the other characters who are also terrified for the character going into the attic. It’s a collective event that heightens what should be a more mundane scare. 

What makes this film less scary than it could have been is lack of character development. This is not a criticism of the director. As I said before the film is what it is. But when the audience cares deeply about a character, a threat to the character makes it scarier. 

Here’s an example. In the final scenes of Alien (1979), we are truly afraid for Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley partly because we like and admire her at that point in the film. 

This is not an accident. 

Remember in an earlier scene when Ripley would not allow three crew members back on board the ship? A xenomorph had attacked a crew member and attached itself to his face. The other two had carried the crew member back to the ship for help and wanted to be let back in. Ripley said no. But she was quickly overridden by another crew member who simply let them on board. 

This scene could’ve been cut and it would not have changed the storyline. So why waste time showing a character refusing to let someone back on board when they get back on board anyway just seconds later?

Think about it. What would you do? 

Your choice here is who you are. So who is Ripley? She’s horribly independent. She doesn’t bend to authority unless authority makes sense to her. She’s completely her own person for better or worse. She doesn’t mind going it alone, and as a result, isn’t that popular or well-liked all the time. She can make tough decisions for the greater good of the whole. 

But most importantly, she has good judgment. Shortly after that scene, we find out how unbelievable good her judgment is. 

Now, at the end of the film, Ripley, the person we’ve come to like and perhaps even admire is in grave danger. We desperately want her to escape. 

Likewise, we know the alien. Yes, the alien is a character too. We know that it can’t be reasoned with as it doesn’t have a conscience. It’s a killing machine. No questions asked. No explanations given. It is what it is. 

In Host, I didn’t feel this way during this film. While the scares were real, they weren’t particularly deep. That’s because I don’t have any emotional investment with any of the characters, not even the demon or whatever it was. I don’t even know that much. What was attacking them. And why? Who knows. But really, who cares.  

Again, that’s not a shortcoming of the film, since it’s not designed to be on the level as Alien or any full-length horror film. It is what it is. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, I recommend this film. While it’s short, it’s well done. It lacks strong character development, but I admire its taut presentation, and it did actually scare me – a lot. 

The shortcomings of Host really aren’t shortcomings at all. The film is short and not designed to be more than what it is. Simply put, it works. It’s not supposed to be a major feature film that stays with you afterward. That’s OK. It’s a simple story told well enough. 

While it doesn’t break new grounds, it’s terribly relevant, having debuted on Shudder shortly after quarantine from COVID-19 had ended most places. Also, many companies still expect their employees to work from home, so Zoom meetings are ubiquitous these days. 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments. 

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Rating (4 of 5):