No Spoilers

The Bridge Curse

The Bridge Curse is a Chinese offering I discovered on Netflix. As a fan of J-Horror and K-Horror I’d thought I’d give this piece of C-Horror a go. I haven’t seen many Chinese horror movies and I do find them to be a little on the not so creepy and scary as J/K-Horror but I think this might be due to the fact I have not seen very many horror movies produced by Chinese studios. I had to watch the subtitled version of this movie and one of the minor complaints I have which is not related to the movie per se is that the sub titles at some points were put in some inopportune and unreadable places. I mean white sub titles placed on white backgrounds is difficult to read. It bothered me more than usual though as sometimes I like to lie in bed and watch the shows but because of the state of the subtitles I had to actually sit at my desk just to read the non-contrasted hard to read text. Ok, enough bitching about the sub titles. The basis of this movie is some haunted part of some school and its associated dorms. There’s a set of haunted stairs on the grounds and it’s said that at midnight of every leap year an extra step appears at the top of these ‘haunted’ stairs and if you make it all the way to the top you’ll see a ghost or die or be haunted or something. Also, if you count or turn around on the stairs while ascending something bad(tm) will happen. Apparently 5 college students were killed 4 years ago while performing some ritual in this hellish area and this movie portrays an anniversary of that date 4 years later with a new set of college students trying to figure out what happened on that fateful day 4 years ago. The movie I will admit was kind of cheesy at some parts but I think this may be due to the fact that something was lost in translation. Though the movie did start off a little slow it was well worth the watch. There’s a nice little twist that brings everything together and in the end this turned out to be the best Chinese horror I’ve seen so far, though admittedly I’ve seen maybe 3. If you like Asian horror give The Bridge Curse a try, you’ll be glad you did.

Vanishing on 7th Street

I found this nice little movie while perusing the offerings PlutoTV had available. I’ve never heard of this movie but after watching it for about 20 minutes I decided I was going to watch all of it as it was interesting to that point. Some unknown force seems to have made everyone on the planet disappear and with a handful of people left around, a literal 1 hand full, we’re given a story of the trials and tribulations of what some random people might go through in the face of such adversity. The cast of characters include a separated television news anchor, a young boy found in a bar alone, a possibly psychotic female physical therapist, and what appears to be a vagrant found with a head injury at a bus stop. Featuring Hayden Christensen, Thandiwe Newton, John Leguizamo, and a young Jacob Latimore. There’s another very important young character in the movie portrayed by the young Taylor Groothius. Though we don’t see much of Taylor‘s character (her acting was impeccable as well), I was able to discern before the end of the movie (though admittedly close to the end) the pivotal role she will play in the events to come. As far as apocalyptic end of the world everyone disappears scenarios go, this was an enjoyable watch. Though simpler and not as cerebral as these types of movies sometimes tend to be, the lack of complications and trying to be too clever of a movie really let this flick flow. All of the acting is pretty good but as we have some relatively big name Hollywood stars in this I think maybe that’s to be or should be expected. Though the ending (or the beginning?) of the show was not to difficult to foresee, I very much like the way this movie concluded and the variety (you will understand when you watch this movie, I’m leaving this part intentionally vague as I write No Spoiler reviews) which will be forthcoming was very intelligently and fairly plotted/written. I’d give this motion picture a solid 6.9 out of 10 with the addition that it’s very watchable.

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