A Oitava Noite

A new South Korean horror on Netflix. With prayer beads in one hand and an ax in the other, a monk hunts down a millennia-old spirit that's possessing humans and unleashing hell on Earth.

Getting straightforward to the point, the plot was incredibly convoluted. A complicated plot doesn't mean a bad thing, but in this movie it was unnecessarily confusing. Even though I was able to wrap my head around it, the twist wasn't surprising or mind-blowing, but only weird and nonsensical.

I might be able to forgive this weird plot if there were good horror, but I was disappointed. Only the design for the eyes were solid in this movie, while the other effects were not scary at all. The movie avoided almost all gore. When someone was about to be attacked, the quick edits came in and we moved on without seeing any blood. That just took away most of the potential scares. There were also twisted-neck effects, but they felt cheap and lame. Lastly, one of the girl in this movie was suppose to be creepy with her smile, but it felt more like a clown face.

With all the slow burn pacing and confusing plot, I could not care much about the characters. The two main characters had an important backstory that was pretty alright, but didn't hit me much.

Overall, a very disappointing South Korean horror. 4/10.

The Good: I love the incorporation of Buddhist mythology and theology in the plot; maybe it's just me, but given the overwhelming depiction of Christianity in ghost and horror movies (even in South Korea), it's refreshing. The characters are generally very fun, particularly the dynamic between young, naive monk Cheonseok and grizzled veteran Jin Woo.

Also, the visuals are trippy and grotesque enough to be compelling, even if the plot is a bit convoluted at times. I love the "eye" and how it moves and acts.

The Bad: As I said before, the plot can be a bit convoluted and complicated, for no particularly good reason. We're still learning things during the film's final act, which is a bit of a problem.

The Ugly: the music. I don't know why, but the music in this one is really cheesy and took me out of the movie multiple times. For a film that lives and dies by its atmosphere, it's a bigger issue than you'd think.

Too much time spent on chit chat n mumbo jumbo stuff which made the movie boring except for the finale which has a brutal kill by the branch.

Basically the story is very similar to Denzel Washington's The Fallen.

This movie cud have been better but alas.

I dont mind the religious mumbo jumbo stuff but at least they cud have made it spooky n atmospheric like Conjuring, Annabelle, Insidious, etc.

Very Korean supernatural horror. The main character always seems to start out really dour. Gore without being disgusting. Shabby without being dirty. High death rate of course. I feel Asian movies lose a bit of their essence in translation to English but this is still pretty good.

Beautiful cinematography, some really endearing and funny moments, mystery, a supernatural doomsday setting. A lot to love here. The only horror movie that really beats this movie that came out in 2021 is A Quiet Place Part 2. (Sorry The Conjuring 3, you really did miss the magic Wann touch!)

I read some complaints about CGI by other reviewers. I don't share their complaints. Had a really good time with this movie.