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After attending
a coffin ceremony to rid himself of
bad karma, a man is haunted by terrifying visions.
Meanwhile, the exact same thing is happening to a
young woman who's getting ready to get married. Could
there be a connection between the two? And what do
they have to do to set things right again?
I guess you can call The Coffin this years big Asian
horror hit. Sure it didn't make as much money as
"Coming Soon" or "Death Bell" but it went on to become
the internationally most well-known Asian horror flick
of the year since it made good money in not only
Thailand but also in Singapore and Malaysia. It feels
like only yesterday when I saw young Ananda Everingham
in the low-brow horror flick "303 Fear Faith Revenge".
Back then no one knew who it was and now his name
is enough to sell an entire movie. Mainly due to the
success of Shutter I might add. I wouldn't mind this
at all had Ananda only had a little bit more self-respect
but these days he is in EVERYTHING and for most of
the time it seems like he just wants quick pay checks
because let me tell you - there is nothing convincing
about Ananda's performance in The Coffin, just like
it didn't fool anyone in the lousy horror thriller
"Memory" which I couldn't even watch till the end since
it was such a freaking snoozer.
Mr. Everingham is however the least of this movie's
problems. The main idea behind The Coffin isn't
awful. It's not good but it's not awful. The execution
however - now there we have awful. The movie switches
back and forth between two characters, Su and Chris,
splitting it into two different movies basically
about the same thing. One of these characters would
have sufficed. It's quite obvious why they've decided
to head down this path though - to extend the movie.
Seriously, the entire movie is just a whole lot of
filler material. It drags, and it drags, and it drags
and it never goes anywhere. There are so many
unnecessary scenes were the actors try in vain to
make us root for the characters and it's so pathetic
that it occasionally even gets a bit embarrassing.
Now, Ekachai Uekrongtham was obviously very ambitious
when he went into this project since it was shot in
the USA, Thailand, Singapore and South Korea and it
even features so many different dialects and languages
that it becomes apparent that they wanted to reach
as many audiences as possible. It doesn't really work
and it feels strange for most of the time. The
directing won't impress anyone either. The cinematography
and visuals are good but nothing that will blow you
away. Oh I almost forgot, there are a few horror...ish
scenes in here as well, maybe we should chat about
them for a while.
When it comes to the horror stuff we're force-fed
long-haired ghost girls and failed attempts at
creating claustrophobia and it really leaves a bad
taste in your mouth. Don't worry though, the horror
stuff certainly doesn't come into play very often.
I'm not sure whether this was a drama turned into a
horror flick or a horror flick turned into a drama
but I would bet my money on the latter and that the
script was actually pretty decent to begin with.
When it all comes down to it though, The Coffin will
put you straight to sleep. It should've been called
Caffeine because you will need lots of it.
No.
Yawn.
What a snore. This is literarily like watching grass
grow. I would actually rather take part of this
ceremony than sit through this wishy-washy horror drama
again. It's certainly not a movie that you can watch
in one go, you will have to pause it, play it, pause
it, play it etc for a couple of times to be able to
force yourself through it.
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