Awful, awful, awful

Rating: 1/10 (9 November 2002)

I had such high expectations for this movie. I guess the moviemakers did not share my expectations. Don't get me wrong, the music, photography, directing and some of the acting (the heroine's) are good. I just don't get why they didn't do more with the story. Now of course it is a remake, but the original must have been better than this! Let me be more to the point. The story is absolutely awful. It makes you think that all these clues are going to add up to something. It could have been really clever. But about 15 minutes into the movie the clues have become so absurd that there is no chance for the villain to be anything else than a ghost. How original. Now here's the really dissatisfying part. All those clues you were paying close attention to? They don't mean diddly squat! They really don't lead to anything. You could have taken all the clues, changed them completely into some other clues, tacked on the ending, and it would have been just as good a fit. The simple truth is that it's just some mean monster terrorizing and killing people. And all those clues that could have at least revealed a tragic motivation for this disgruntled ghost's vengeance end up being utterly vain: the monster is just evil. That's all there is to it. It came up from who knows where, always has wanted to hurt people, and always will. That's why none of what I said is really a spoiler. If the clues meant something, then telling you about them would reveal the ending. But this ending might as well have been put at the beginning, because all going through the middle is just a waste of time. The movie is a scare machine. It is mechanical, cold, and shallow, filled with mere fluff. A string of one cheap thrill after another. If you like this kind of movie, it would be cheaper and just as satisfying to go have yourself electrocuted (gently, of course -- as the movie shows, you can die from electric shock).