Ghost House

"Ghost House" (2017, Rich Ragsdale, Vertical Entertainment) is about a white American couple getting exploited by some white British people while visiting Thailand; getting themselves haunted in the process.


The film offers some visuals of both the beautiful and less beautiful parts of Bangkok as the newly engaged couple, Julie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Jim (James Landry Hebert), explore.


Upon meeting some overly friendly British guys, they decide to blindly join them on a night of raucous partying and find themselves abandoned in the countryside outside of the city. Julie disturbs a shrine (or Ghost House) and inadvertently becomes the main target of a vengeful spirit (Wen-Chu Yang). It's up to Jim to try and save his fiancée from the angry ghost before it's too late... And maybe find those British assholes again...


A typical vengeance ghost flick that's only innovation is to move the story from Japan to Thailand. The protagonists and antagonists are equally unlikeable (except for the ghost) and the local people and legend play little to no part in the plot. The plot itself is a little wandering and takes a few twists that made me lose some character sympathy where it might have been better to make me feel more sorry for them.


The ghost enjoys a few effective jump scares, but is ultimately victim to a lot of repetition which takes away from her overall scariness. The effects are pretty good, however, and it's worth adding that, if the plot had been stronger, the film would have been more engaging. As it is, it felt a little more like bargain-bin "The Grudge".

[Image: Vertical Entertainment]

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Kanika

"Kanika" aka "कनिका" (2017, Pushkar Manohar, Ankit (Sunshine)) is a supernatural revenge horror from India. It is in Marathi language and is available with English subtitles.


Kaushik (Sharad Ponkshe) is a well-off doctor working in his own hospital. He is greedy and happy to flaunt laws in order to receive more money. After his security guard leaves, citing ghosts, Kaushik begins to see the spectre of a little girl haunting him. Soon, he begins to lose friends and colleagues under mysterious circumstances. His wife, Vaishali (Chaitrali Gupte) begins to worry that her husband has lost his mind... The little girl is after revenge, but possibly death is too quick?


The film covers a very polarising subject: abortion. It's a subject that can be difficult to understand across different cultures, genders, religions and social circles. Within different groups, issues with the subject can vary greatly. The main theme behind this film is to shine a light on the practice in the region of terminating pregnancies because of the gender of the child and its resultant social standing. In the case described within the plot, the mother did not want to do this and thus, a vengeful ghost is born.


I have not had as many opportunities to watch Indian horror as I have Japanese, European and American. The film is fairly low-budget with a few plot holes and some long winded dialogue, but it does have a certain charm to it. Our protagonist (or maybe he's the real antagonist?), Kaushik, is a fairly unlikeable person; A greedy and cowardly man who displays some fairly humorous behaviour in his attempt to save himself. There's also a scene with a treadmill where they made the actor mime walking which was decidedly distracting.


Kanika herself has a few good moments where she appears in different places, and similarly to the vengeful spirits within The Grudge and Ring franchises, her appearance is bedraggled with hair covering her face. There are a few scenes where she's not used as effectively and her story does not reach a fully satisfying conclusion.


All in all, the film is fairly low impact. It's not scary enough to make it a thrilling horror, it's not daft enough to venture into the cult B-movie arena and, although it carries a strong social message, it is not delivered particularly well - opting for a more sledgehammer style.

[Image: Ankit]

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Nails

"Nails" (2017, Dennis Bartok, Dark Sky Films)

Dana (Shauna Macdonald) finds herself  paralysed in a run-down, Irish hospital after a gruesome hit and run. Unable to speak, she desperately tries to communicate to staff and her family that she is being haunted by a malevolent spirit, bent on killing her.

Pretty standard horror fare, that doesn't efficiently make use of the more psychological scares at its disposal. The film opens well and enjoys some fun supernatural scenes and a strong, but innocent lead from Macdonald, however, it suffers from a slow pace, lots of plot holes and an overly familiar, over saturated plot. Ross Noble plays an orderly called Trevor, who's role seems to be a bit more involved than most.

Formulaic and a little dull, it doesn't stand out as anything exciting and, like a lot of films, suffers from a busy, messy end.

[Image: Dark Sky Films]

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