Blissful horror....

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2003)

One can safely comment that this movie is absorbing and highly entertaining..The concept that the viewing of a videotape leads to a certain death 7 days later and the struggle to prevent such demise in the meantime while time is steadily running out attracts the attention and interest of the viewer who is captured by the charm of the dark life threatening secret from the first scene and is not released until the end or long after it even...The acting is solid ,the characters behavior not always "smart" but believable , the visual effects convincing ,the atmosphere impressive and it maintains both the agony and the guesswork in your mind active throughout."Im scared but i love it " would be an accurate description of the experience. I wont reveal the exact plot but i will make a couple of general comments on it so if you belong to the category of viewers that don't wish to know anything about the storyline don't read any further.The first observation is that the actual killings are not shown while committed .This "just before and after" approach which is handled well gives the film a less bloody profile and effectively helps to remove of it the label of "another horror movie" since bloodbaths have become very much a cliché that provokes disgust but not necessarily fear. But is the movie a thriller proper? Well , if you expect at the end of it to leave the movie theatre with all the answers you will be a little bit disappointed.As in most movies that employ the supernatural as part of the explanation more questions than the ones answered are created and that for me is not a triviality.. If on the other hand you are not bothered with such approaches you can be sure that you will be in happy agony for 2 hours .It is certain that you wont regret your choice to see this otherwise impressive piece of film making. i would rate it 7.5/10