Pil-gi’s suffered much during his life of growing up. There’s no mention of his mother, so we can only assume that she left or she died. His father is a hard worker, but also a stubborn old fool; fighting with everyone everywhere they go. The two travellers move from town to town, never settling due to his father’s attempt to improve his son’s life. Through blood, sweat and tears, Pil-gi’s father teaches him the value of comittment and decency, until his death.
His father’s dying wish is for Pil-gi to own his own home, just as his father could never manage. Pil-gi, now grown up, honours his father’s request and buy’s his own house, which is built near a town, on top of a hill. With a stunning view of the town below, and a bargain price to boot, Pil-gi is drawn into the moment of what he has achieved, in rememberance of his father. However, the town’s folk warn Pil-gi of the house’s history, and the rumours that it’s haunted. Pil-gi mocks their comments, and inform them he doesn’t believe in ghosts. That is until, the ghost of the house decides to make an entrance and turn Pil-gi’s life upside down.
The first half of Ghost House is absolutely brilliant. The characterisation, the humour, the ghostly antics, direction and pace of the film is excellent and never dull. Pil-gi is haunted with the sort of comic humour that makes me wonder if the director watched The Evil Dead more than a few times. The talking pyschotic couch, and the parody of Ringu and other psychological horror films are hilarious, and the comedic acting brings it all to life. The special effects look cheap at times, looking more like pieces of string moving objects than anything else. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the case, but then later on the effects go up a few levels and make a huge difference – they’re subtle and never over bearing; adding to the suspense and humour than saturating it with effects.
We get moments of The Sixth Sense, and the “I see dead people” syndrome, along with a musical opening reminiscent of the Harry Potter films
It’s unfortunate then, that Ghost House is never able to sustain that brilliance it begins with. The film decides to venture into typical Korean melodrama and the ghost is seen as sympathetic rather than an evil, which takes away from all the initial humour and build up. It’s not longer Pil-gi vs the ghost, and the bond of friendship that develops is such a cheap way to get out of creating something that could have been more adventorous.
So far only Save The Green Planet has come close to showing that melodrama does not have to be the be all and end all of all Korean films. I’m starting become more than sick of Korean melodrama, as it seems to be affect almost every single film. Korean directors need to break out of the monotony, and start exploring and being original. It hurts my head just thinking about it.
We get moments of The Sixth Sense, and the “I see dead people” syndrome, along with a musical opening reminiscent of the Harry Potter films, and an intro which comes across as Tim Burton in style. There are many elements the film borrows from Hollywood, but at the same time, it had every potential to do something different, to be fun rather than dull.
Sadly it opts for dull, and we follow Pil-gi’s search to help the ghost find her husband who’s been missing since an accident – she is a wondering ghost who cannot leave until she finds what she’s looking for. It becomes tiresome, but there are scenes of clever humour even later on; however, these are few and far between, and it’s mostly gone off track into forumlaic humdrum.
The first half of Ghost House is absolutely brilliant. The characterisation, the humour, the ghostly antics, direction and pace of the film is excellent and never dull
With so much potential wasted, the film still tries to integrate the good fighting the bad with the introduction of an evil property developer, forcing people out of their homes. What ensues is a silly, and not vey comedic series of events which culminates with a medium sized battle with two humans and several ghosts again an entire drove of thugs anc construction workers controlled by the anally retentive property developer.
To say the film tries to give justify it’s rather long blurb on enternal love is more than understating the reality of what takes place on screen. You’re never quite sure why the direction and screenplay attempts to squeeze so many different genres into a rather long winded piece which utlimately feels a cop-out and a failure. Ghost House tries many things, and fails at them all – to put it bluntly, it’s a jack of all trades, and master of none.
Had the film continued its pastiche of existing psychological horror films, it may have garnered more respect for trying to attempt something different. We’re not talking about the backward and unfunny humour of the Scary Movie films either, but more of that budgeted, Sam Raimi or Tim Burton style of strange, twisted humour. Disappointingly it fails to jump on the opportunity and what we wend up with is a mess of ideas, badly put together.
Verdict: Promising start but a woeful lack of ideas make this one to rent or borrow only.