I apologize in advance for this angry rant, but I'm really getting sick and tired of hearing completely erroneous "criticisms" of Asian horror repeated over and over again. The ignorant backlash against this genre knows no bounds in terms of invalid argumentation. It is ironic, however, that the most widely held and oft used criticism just so happens to be the most ridiculous and unfounded of them all. Critics blindly assert that Asian horror movies are "all the same" because they "always have ghost girls." What a load of crap. One would think that critics would eventually get the point, but then I read the comments for this film and can only shake my head in disbelief.
Now, is there a subset of Asian horror that churns out ghost girl flicks for a quick buck? Yep. Do these commercialized fluff pieces greatly outnumber other Asian horror films to the point where someone could actually assert a ubiquitous, industry-wide lack of creativity? Nope. I've personally seen over 500 horror films from Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, and other East Asian countries, but the onryo (ghost girl) shows up only in a MINORITY of instances. To make an assertion of "non-creative" trends, you must choose to ignore the bucketloads of crazy Hong Kong sorcery flicks from the 1980s like The Boxer's Omen (1983), Seeding of a Ghost (1983), and Bewitched (1981). You must choose to ignore visceral horror/thriller hybrids like I Saw the Devil (2010), Bedevilled (2010), and Macabre (2009). You must choose to ignore Japanese cyberpunk films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), The Great Analog World (1987), and Rubber's Lover (1996). You must choose to ignore any number of slashers like Evil Dead Trap (1988), Dream Home (2010), and To Sir With Love (2005). You must choose to ignore a number of Japanese classics like A Page of Madness (1926), Demon Pond (1979), and Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (1975). You must choose to ignore a plethora of short films included within highly imaginative anthologies like Unholy Women (2006), Ten Nights of Dreams (2006), Prayer Beads (2004), Three Extremes (2004), and Rampo Noir (2005). You must choose to ignore surrealistic entries like Spider Forest (2004), Marebito (2004), and Nightmare Detective 2 (2008). You must choose to ignore animal/monster fare like Tamami: The Baby's Curse (2008), Calamity of Snakes (1983), and The Cat (1992). You must choose to ignore wild haunted house movies like Hausu (1977), Sweet Home (1989), and Kill Barbara With Panic (1995). Even these sub-genres of Asian horror are insufficient to encapsulate the incredibly imaginative themes that saturate the industry – films like Uzumaki (2000), Strange Circus (2005), Hansel and Gretel (2007), Audition (1999), Gakko No Kaidan 4 (1999), Someone Behind You (2007), Abnormal Beauty (2004), and Naked Blood (1995). Yes, an assertion of "non-creativity" within Asian horror requires A LOT of ignorance. So if you don't know what you're talking about, you'd be wise to just shut your mouth and watch more of these movies.
Okay, now that I have successfully ripped critics a new butthole . . . let's briefly discuss Ghastly (2011).
After his sister and brother-in-law die in a nasty murder-suicide, a man adopts the nephew and moves into the house with his wife and her younger sister. The problem is that the little boy engages in some seriously nasty behavior behind the scenes that may be linked to a spirit his shaman grandmother worshipped. One might wish to write this off as another "creepy little kid" film, but the kid here is a vicious, manipulative, menacing little guy and – dare I say – a badass. He There's quite a bit of bloody violence too, mostly focusing on dream sequences, knife attacks and dismemberment. There's also a focus on internal conflict within the family, which raises the tension sufficiently. On the negative side, the editing feels a bit rushed at times, the dream tricks get repetitive and are somewhat cheap, and some of the character decision-making near the end is dumb, but this is fast-paced and easily consumable.
