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Ratna has just
gotten a job at a hospital in Kuala
Lumpur and decides to abandon her family to pursue
her career. But not long after her arrival, she
starts having creepy visions of a ghostly woman and
her daughter. Could it be her guilt haunting her or
is her visions real? If so, what do they want? She
returns to her hometown to see if she can find some
answers - but what she's about to find out is way
beyond her wildest imagination.
I saw the trailer for this Malaysian horror flick some
time ago and knew that I wasn't going to like it so
when I finally received it on VCD, I just prayed that
the movie wouldn't be too long. And I'll be damned if
it didn't turn out to be 2 and a half hours long!
Seriously, Puaka Tebing Biru is a slow, generic ghost
movie with way too much drama and an incredibly thin
story. To make it even slower and longer they've
decided to give us the entire back-story of the ghost,
which isn't interesting nor creepy.
Now, I'm not sure if I've got everything about the
plot entirely figured out as only about 60% of the
VCD was subtitled for some reason. It would simply
skip a couple of dialogues and then occasionally
we'd get to see an English translation (and yes,
this probably made the movie even more dull). Anyway,
the story revolves around Ratna who has just gotten
a job in Kuala Lumpur. To pursue her career, she had
to leave her family home in the village, something
which they were not too fond of. It only takes about
a minute into the movie before Ratna starts having
ghostly visions (that are very reminiscent of the ones
in The Grudge for some reason - though not nearly as
scary). So what we have here is, you betcha, yet
another ghost movie with an unoriginal plot. Gee,
I feel like I've been watching these a lot lately.
Apparently, all it takes for a person to get funding
to make a movie in Malaysia is to have a script filled
with grudge-like ghosts and cheap scares - seriously.
Unfortunately, none of the scares were very scary and
the atmosphere just wasn't there. However, I have to
give some credit to the writer and director of this
movie as at least the main story is semi-original
and it did feel like a decent amount of effort was
put into making it. It's too bad that the story isn't
at all interesting.
Had this movie been shorter, I'm guessing it would
have gotten a rating of 2/5 from me, but the fact is,
I don't think that anyone in their right minds will
be able to watch this until the end - unless they have
to (like me). I don't think that I really need to say
more than that, just skip this one as it's not worth
the time - it's a dull, scare-less generic ghost movie,
something which we've seen way too much of lately.
Not much, some minor blood.
Competent soundtrack with a lot of Malaysian music.
Too bad the suspense score wasn't all that great.
Extremely dull ghost movie where all the scares have
been stolen from The Grudge. The running time is
probably the movie's biggest problem however as I don't
think that anyone wants to sit through a two and a
half hour long The Grudge rip-off. Don't waste your
time, you're worth better.
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