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Dr. Yuth is
obsessed with the supernatural and has
recently found out about a mysterious event that took
place at Kamchanod several years ago - projectionists
were hired to screen a film for ghosts in the middle
of the woods. He brings his girlfriend and a couple of
other people with him to uncover the whole truth but
before they know it, the entire crew is surrounded by
evil spirits. Will they find out the key to the
mystery before it's too late?
The Screen starts out like any other Thai horror flick,
continues like any other Thai horror flick and finally
finishes with style! Seriously, this film couldn't be
more mediocre even if it wanted to until the big finale
which completely blew me away. The end twist was clever
and exciting and really took me by surprise. But let's
start from the top shall we? The Screen is another
flat Thai ghost story with little imagination and
scares that fail to scare. It's about a group of people
who go on a quest to uncover a mystery at Kamchanod
(because we all know where that's at).
Anyway, so apparently there's this special film that,
if showed at Kamchanod, can summon spirits. The group
watches the movie in a small cinema and notices right
away that there's something odd about this film (did
I mention that this film is extremely similar to the
one in the original Ringu film?). Shortly thereafter
the group starts to have ghostly visions that are
slowly driving them insane. Will they be able to even
screen the film at Kamchanod before they all fall
victim to the evil spirits? I'm not sure I got that
all right because for most of the time my mind was in
a completely different place. So anyway, it's about an
hour of nonsense ghost scares that didn't do much for
me but once the movie reaches its climax, it all feels
worth while... well, almost anyway.
Now, The Screen does have some things that sets it apart
from other Thai ghost stories. First of all, it's based
on a true story (probably very loosely though), then
we have a group of very different and interesting
characters - Dr. Yuth who's obsessed with the supernatural,
his suicidal girlfriend who gets dragged into his
projects whether she likes it or not, a homeless guy
who has a crush on Yuth's girlfriend and weazles his
way into the project and a journalist couple who hope
that this will be their journalistic breakthrough. The
cinematography is also surprisingly good considering
that Thai horrors have decreased in quality as of
lately. Director Songsak Mongkoltong does his best to
create a creepy atmosphere and scare the hell out of
his audience but unfortunately his tricks feel recycled
and out of date and we all know when the scares are
coming and where they are coming from.
Had this movie been made a couple of years ago, I'm sure
that I would have been more impressed with it but today,
it's just another forgettable Thai ghost story with
a kick-ass ending. You can't just rely on a good
climax though and that's really what these guys did.
The entire movie is all about the climax and it just
didn't feel like we had to sit through 60 minutes of
nonsense for that. If you're in the mood for an okay
ghost story, you could do a whole lot worse. The Screen
is the best Thai horror flick since Alone but that's
not saying much these days unfortunately. A decent
concept but script-wise it didn't work all the way.
A knife-stabbing, nothing much.
Generic recycled stuff.
The Screen isn't as bad as most Thai horror flicks are
these days, it's actually not bad at all, it's just
not very good either. It's a forgettable ghost flick
with a great ending but not a whole lot more to offer.
If you're looking for a good scare, you may want to
look elsewhere as this won't freak anyone out.
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