The Bridge Curse: Ritual

The film, from horror powerhouse Taiwan, starts with an interesting angle: students are working on an Augmented Reality video game based on a haunted, er, university. Said students (who are as dim-witted as most characters in this type of story) test out their game on location (why they need to test out the game when it's nearing completion rather than early on in the development process is unclear). The actual ghosts soon start layering with the AR gaming, which is an original approach and fairly interesting (what is really there and where??). We get a number of point of view shots from CCTV cameras and the gamers' equipment, and when handled well such subjective shots are always a great strategy to immerse viewers and turn up the horror quotient. Yet the film soon leaves that idea behind to focus on the real ghosts, which is a shame because everything becomes much more pedestrian at that point. Thankfully the visual dynamic is replaced by narrative ingenuity as a late twist shakes things up and saves the film... until a final revelation that's too rushed to have much impact (and perhaps the fact that I haven't seen the first film doesn't help). In the end the film is ok but clearly had potential for more.