Warning: Do Not Play

Watch this if you want to see a fragile "protagonist" crying, flailing and waving some sort of razor around for 25+ mins.

Probably one of the most irritating films I've seen in a very long time. Generally South Korean film is excellent but this one is, in my view, a real stinker.

"Warning: Do Not Play" starts of well enough and looks promising but then, for totally unfathomable reasons, heads off on an addled monsterous mystery tour. It took all my will power to see this thing through to its weak tea conclusion.

Its a shame too as the core premise is worthwhile, acting solid and cinamatics polished.

2/10.

John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns did it better. Watch that instead if you can find it.

Eager to continue her studies, a rookie film director becomes intrigued by reports of a cursed film rumored to be directed by a ghost and sets out to learn more about it, but the closer to the truth she gets the more she uncovers a dangerous entity coming for her and must try to solve the mystery safely.

Overall, this was a pretty solid effort. One of the strongest elements here is the folklore and backstory given to the particular film as there's a lot of detail here to make it fun. Though the concept of the cursed film driving people insane when they watch it is nothing new, the setup featured here of the individual tormented to live out the rest of his life as a paranoid, deranged lunatic for filming and releasing what he did which starts the spread of the rumors involving the film and its legacy afterward. That ties nicely into the other solid positive with the film's supernatural elements. The opening sequence of the figure stalking a character through a darkened car-park using a cellphone camera for light is a chilling and pretty creepy opening, while the encounter with the frantic former director in his house is a nice segment. The changing lights, crazed behavior and frantic attacks to get at her all set the stage for the final half where the return to the abandoned, fire-ravaged theater which features plenty of tactics from recreations of the original incidents to her encounters with the ghost that has some solid action, giving this one a lot to like. There are some issues to be had with this one. The biggest letdown is the series of investigations that are taking place in the first half where the pace is so dragged out and slow to get going that there are several start-and-stop plot-points added to this one. The meetup with the various film-students who spill the urban legend about the movie to her, the different instructors at the film-centers she talks with to learn the truth about the movie or the searches around the university grounds trying to find it which are all necessary to understand what's going on yet just don't have the urgency needed to help this one out. The other problem here is with the seemingly cursed movie that's supposed to drive her insane yet that barely materializes. Very rarely does anything in here make sense, from how the psychological strain of attempting to find out how anything worked on the original shoot which causes her to be tormented by the forces who worked on it to the sudden introduction of morality into the story and all the background characters from the filming being involved, this one is confusing and quite chaotic to make out what's going on. Coupled with some cheap make-up effects from time-to-time, these are where the film stumbles.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

I though about making my header comment... ''Warning... do NOT play'', but that was both low hanging fruit and not completely honest. This movie is not a complete waste of time, and some people might even like it more than I did-- if those people are looking for a rather formulaic Korean horror that tries really hard, but ultimately superficially, to be surprising and gripping. It is competently filmed in its own right, and you can tell that some experience was behind the making of the film, but...

The truth is the premise of a ''lost'', cursed creative product lurking to be rediscovered by an ambitious young creative was uninspired, the plot development is not nearly so innovative as alluded to (and the end was rather predictable to me), the mixing of found footage and professional was disappointingly cliched, and most glaringly, the characters were at best, stock. The mad director, the insatiably curious (and even unsympathetically unethical) young new writer looking to overcome their writer's block, the impatient producer, the earnest supporters who will likely be fodder... etc. The movie has a few honestly creepy moments, but those moments are themselves cliche, albeit fairly well done, and the addition of a few creepy scenes can not overcome the overall dullness of the movie, or the badly written characters and overacting which so many Korean directors seem to feel makes it more gripping.

At least it wasn't needlessly filled with screaming... lot's of ragged hyperventilating, but not too many screams, so that is something.