Search - Art of the Devil II on DVD

Giving the Saw & Hostel franchises a run for their money.

Devlin Tay | Adelaide, Australia | 01/22/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So ... was Art of the Devil 2 ("Long Khong" in Thai) scary? Hell, yeah! Enough gore to satisfy fans of Hollywood-type slasher movies, and peppered with generous helpings of ghostly apparitions and other supernatural elements to satisfy me. It has got to be the most graphic horror movie to come out of Asia so far, and I'll have to confess that there were very many scenes where I simply had to turn away from the screen or cover my eyes. I couldn't sit through the whole movie at one go - I had to pause it and do something else to settle my nerves several times. I'm very squeamish about seeing blood and am therefore not a fan of slasher movies - I would probably not have enjoyed "Long Khong" one bit if not for the fact that it is not simply a slasher movie but also a ghost story and a movie about black magic and the consequences of using it. Thailand has a reputation amongst Asians as the capital of the black arts, and possibly even the Thais themselves believe this, so it is not surprising "Long Khong" was such a massive hit in Thailand. Anyways, the Cliffs Notes version of the story goes like this - spoilers ahead. A once adored female teacher of a small-town high school is caught on tape by her stepson and his school-mates having an affair with the handsome but villainous gym teacher. The gym teacher confronts the group of friends, threatens them with a gun, and sexually molests several of them. In revenge, they seek the help of a shaman to cast a very nasty spell on the gym teacher, resulting in his very gory death involving some very nasty fish-hooks. Not content with that, the friends proceed to broadcast the tape in the school cafeteria, ruining the reputation of the female teacher for good and destroying her marriage - she descends into madness. The friends then graduate from high school and go their separate ways - the stepson being the only one to stay behind in the small-town. Two years later, they each receive a call from the stepson telling them that his father is dead, and inviting them to his funeral. The friends eagerly accept the invitation as an opportunity for a reunion, not realising that their journey home will end in pain, madness and death. For lurking in the background is a wronged woman who has waited two years for revenge, and she will do anything to get it, in very painful and inventive ways. For she has killed the shaman, eaten his flesh, and absorbed his dark powers into herself, and she is now ready to unleash unimaginable horrors upon those who wronged her. And the dark arts are not all she is armed with - her arsenal includes some rather sharp machetes, a syringe filled with tranquilisers, a blow-torch, a pair of pliers, an electric drill, a kettle of boiling water, a large jar of pickled mangoes, some large pots of chicken soup and fish curry, and very handy first-aid resuscitation skills (the better to revive near-dead torture victims with). And oh, how she's going to have fun teaching her former students new lessons in terror and pain ... One hour and fourty three minutes later, I'll never quite look at geckos (you know, those lizard thingies with that "gecko, gecko" call) the same way again."

An interesting tale

Jer | Long Island, New York | 11/10/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is ok. Not the best asian horror film I have seen. The movie starts off kind of boring. We see these kids getting back togther after awhile because one of the friends father has died. They stay with their old teacher who is actually one of the kids step-parent. In the past, the kids have a secret. While trying to videotape the gym teacher having sex with the step-mother they are caught and rapped. They take revenge by placing a spell on him. The step-mother finds this out and takes revenge on them while they are staying with her. Each death is quite gruesome. This film is a low quality thai movie. I love asian horror and this movie has its moments. It does not stand up to par with movies such as Infection, Tell me something, or even Premonition."