Search - Nightmare on DVD

Eeriness Left in Awkward Twilight...

Kim Anehall | Chicago, IL USA | 06/14/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"When a female friend of a group of seven returns to South Korea after a two year long visit to United States strange occurrences begin. These occurrences are related to the death of a woman that the seven friends once knew and it seems that the same dead woman is returning to them. The dead woman's return seems to be linked to a videotape that they all know about, but the question lies in what is on the tape. Nightmare is a horror film with some eerie moments and gruesome scenes, but the awkwardness of the story removes the engaging theme and leaves a flat cinematic experience as the suspense rests solely on separate incidents."

Hey - At least it's Asian horror.

William F. Soule | Clearfield, UT USA | 09/06/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Nightmare could've been done a lot better, but then again, it could've been done a lot worse. You all should probably know a little about the storyline, so I'll just go into what I think they could've improved on:



1 - The first half of the movie was confusing and slow. Sure, they tie it all together at the end, but they could've made the retracing of what happened in the past more apparent. I was watching the movie in present-time and had no idea they were retracing the characters' previous actions. For a while, it felt like several random scenes were being pieced together which was apparently supposed to make sense.



2 - The make-up effects were laughable. The ghost looked like a goth chick and wasn't that scary at all.



3 - The movie assumes you know everything about the main characters. The characters go around and talk about specific things to each other more than half-way into the movie which should've been brought up/hinted on/foreshadowed earlier as to avoid confusion. The characters hold connections to each other that just felt tossed in just to make the relationships seem more dense.





Yeah... if they would've spent a little bit more time going over everything, they could've made the storyline easier to follow, thus making the movie more enjoyable. Oh, and they should also take a few notes from their Japanese horror counterparts because the ghost was seriously not scary. But don't be dismayed... everything comes together in the last 30 minutes of the film (making everything a bit more intense), and the ending was actually kind of cool, so the movie is at least worth being rented first."

Had potential...

Maryssa | USA | 08/07/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Nothing like Phone, although it tries to steal from it. Don't fall for it!

The story:A girl (Sun A) returns to Korea from two years in the U.S. She just shows up by her friend Hyun Jun's apartment(great actress)They catch up and Sun A tries to tell her that a ghost is after her. From flashbacks, we find out that they were part of a group of friends that now doesn't speak because something happened. The movie box says a friend dies, but the ghost/friend Hyung was never a friend. Apparently she killed herself and they hardly knew her, but feel responsible. Flashbacks throughout the movie because not all the former friends know everything about each other. They get together when they start dying, one by one, all seeing the ghost. But is the ghost doing the killing? Like Phone, there are things necessary to the story that aren't revealed to the end, and they try to almost follow the same formula - which just falls flat here. What I liked about Phone was the lack of confusion at the end and resolvement.. This is full of guessing. There is a desperate killer, there is a ghost, there is a coverup or two, and there is possesion at the end.

It's not bad, but I just expected more from the director of Phone.

Try Whispering Corriders instead.

"

Not One Of Korea's Better Horror Films!

Ernest Jagger | Culver City, California | 01/30/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

""Nightmare," by director Byeong-ki Ahn, is neither a very good horror film, nor a very good slasher film. The film begins with a pretty good start: You witness the body of a young girl in a morgue who is having her eyes stitched shut. Fast forward into the future, and the films narrative begins with a a group of former college friends who are being killed off one by one. Is this the work of a mentally unstable woman? Or is it the vengeful spirit of one of the groups former friends who was accidentally killed years before? The film leaves you guessing as to whether or not this is the work of either a killer, or a ghost. Or maybe both?



As the films narrative moves along, you see a young woman, Sun-ae (Jeong-yun Choi) who has just returned from the United States, after a two year absence. Moreover, she is hiding out in one of the friends' apartment; and she believes the ghost of this vengeful spirit is out to take revenge and kill her. The viewer sees Kyungh-ah (Ji-won Ha) as the vengeful ghost who is on an unstoppable mission. Or is it? As the bodies begin to pile up, some of the friends are warned by detectives that one of the girls, Sun-ae (Jeong-yun Choi) has been in a mental hospital, and is either the killer, or maybe in danger herself. She has sought refuge in the apartment of one of her friends, who was also once part of her inner circle of friends: Hye-jin (Gyu-ri Kim).



These few survivors are what remain of the college friends who know of the terrible secret regarding Kyungh-ah [aka: Eun-ju]. Although this film was probably inspired by "Prom Night," that is not the problem. The major problem with this film is the scriptwriting and cohesion of the film itself. The film is very disjointed, and the back and forth flashbacks from past and present were a little irritating. And while the film was not really original, I could deal with that. However, the film was slow and boring. This film will probably appeal to those who like slasher films, whether or not it is foreign. This is not the worst Asian horror film I have seen, however, the film just isn't that good either."