Hideo Nikata has a lot to bloody answer for. He managed to create a cult hit with Ringu, which became a must-see movie through word of mouth and the blessings of the Internet. Before that, there was nonsense like the Blair Witch Project, which in itself was a rip off of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The current spate of horror films is rather annoying. They all seem to think that because Ringu managed to hit on a winner, that they can all do it. Nikata flunked with the official sequel, a sequel to the books, and a prequel – they all failed to set alight the audience as the first did, and didn’t manage to capture any degree of suspense like the original. Has Nikata made a decent film since? Not really; they’ve all be rather average. The only film that perhaps came close to reinventing the genre to some degree was Kairo by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. A stunning film that made you think, while giving you the uber shits.
It seems the world is obsessed with psychological horrors at the moment. Horrors which revolve around a tragic story of abuse/torture/torment, and use minimal effects and quick camera shots to create a sense of fear. As far as I am concerned, they’ve all pretty much failed to spook me. Perhaps a gun to the head might scare me, but even then, you’d have to be really scary with the gun and shoot me a few times. Also wear a clown mask. Clown’s are scary.
Is Nikata to blame for every “I’m like Ringu too!” film? Partly; but then I would want studios, script writers and directors to add their own twist to the genre. Bunshinsaba does this to some degree, but only in the last 15-20 minutes of the film, which makes watched the previous hour’s worth a bit of a bloody nonsense (no pun intended).
Yet another tragic tale about angry spirits, curses, bad people who deserve to die, and a town with a dark secret. Now where have you heard that before, eh? Yoo Jin is a girl from Seoul who has come to the village with her mother. I think I’ve already spotted a plot hole, but I’ll leave that for you to figure out. In any case, outsiders are not welcome, and as Yoo Jin befriends two girls in school, another group bully her for being an outsider. The girls are victimised, beaten, spat upon and treated like dirt.
In a moment of fury, the three girls decide to exact their revenge upon the bullies with a curse. They call forth Bunshinsaba to take care of those rather bad girls, and in the process free them from victimisation. It works, although I’m sure you can guess, it suddenly goes all out of hand; there’s a dark secret of what they call forth; and monkeys start appeaRingu from thin air, wreaking havoc with large, tree sized bananas. I lied about the monkeys and bananas. They probably would have made it a lot more fun and interesting.
Queue every single bloody psychological horror technique that has been exhibited since even before Ringu. There’s elements of folklore, old wives tales, as well as nicking an awful amount from other horror films, including the states. What Bunshinsaba seems like is a glossy, high budget Korean B-movie. It has all the elements of B-movie status, except it has a bigger budget. The same horror doesn’t work twice. Ringu, in that respect is unique, as watching Sadako come of the screen still turns me on. Um, scares me. With Bunshinsaba, the scariest thing you’ll see is a girl with make up. That’s your lot.
The film tries its best to inject something new into the rather quick dying genre. There is a decent story with some subtle changes, that doesn’t really kick in until the latter half of the film. The best part of the film, as I’ve already mentioned is the last 20 minutes, so for the rest of the time, you may as well skip it or sleep for about 30 minutes. When you wake up, you’ll have more questions and it will probably intrigue you to watch the film again. Heck you may even like it better then.
I found Bunhinbaba to be too short on originality or fear factor. It even uses that often used cliche first used at the end of The Omen, with the look back at the camera, and a sense that the horror isn’t over. How flipping original is that? Not very. Come on people, pull your bloody socks up and start making some decent horror films. It’s not original to take a shot of white eyes, or a head which is half lifted and has a dirty grin of malice. We’ve seen it all before.
It seems the genre is in a state of flux, not quite knowing where it’s heading or what it’s trying to do. When a film tries to use all the techniques in a space of an hour, you know they’re running out of ideas. I will let you count the number familiar scenes that you’ll have witnessed in other horrors, in Bunshinsaba. It’s horrendously disappointing. I guess this isn’t too much of a shock, seeing as the director’s previous work including the laughable rip off that was Phone (can you guess what film they took that from?) and Nightmare.
The acting is pretty average. I felt some of the characters really were over the top, with a hearty laugh here and there, trying to exude some sort of maniacal insanity. It doesn’t work. When one of the characters starts to become possessed, it’s just hilarious; she croaks, she shivers, she even tap dances. No, she doesn’t tap dance. Not one person comes across as convincing, however, I did fancy the art teacher. Fortunately she’s female.
Bunshinsaba is a confused, unoriginal mess. I enjoyed only one of the deaths, which was actually quite enjoyable. Everything else had been done before. It has elements of Candyman, Final Destination, Kakashi, Ringu and a dozen more films from which it has ripped off. It’s not an awful film, it just isn’t scary at all. It may have worked as a melodrama, something more realistic. Instead they’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon of “scare-me-do-like-Ringu” and it comes off as a laughable execution of psychological horror.
Verdict: If you’re looking for a horror with no scares, bad acting, and a crap plot – Bunshinsaba is the one for you