[Cadaver]
Plot:A pivotal moment in the experience of all medical students is encountering their first cadaver in anatomy class. However, when six fledgling South Korean students dissecting the corpse of a beautiful young woman begin to experience identical troubling nightmares, and some befall gruesome fates, it's clear that this is much more than standard first-year med-school trauma.

Cast:Han Ji-min, On Ju-wan, Oh Tae-gyeong.

My Thoughts:Not the best asian horror cinema has to offer.

Review:"Cadaver" is another in the asian horror chain, another of those creepy ghost movies where some unsuspecting kids are terrorized by a vengeful spirit which really has a "fuck all" attitude, and is willing to take out anyone it deems a threat or an enemy. Only this one comes from filmmaker Derek Son, making his feature film debut. Son directs the film with some great angles and use of dark colors and overtones.

Which isn't really hard considering the movie is set within an anatomy class, where students cut on human cadaver's as part of their learning experience. The movie follows a group of students performing their first dissection on a female cadaver. After class however, each of them begins to have terrifying nightmares and visions of said cadaver, and soon, the visions are followed by systematic deaths of the students.

Each dying with the same cut in their chest as they placed upon the cadaver during class. Don't get this film confused with the Thai horror pic "Sop", which in English translates into "Cadaver". IFC Films dropped Son's "Cadaver" into limited cinemas earlier this year. Son's "Cadaver" is a very well-acted piece, and as I said before, has some very sharp and crisp directing. But the movie relies more on black humor and some ingredients including creepy imagery and trippy visuals above all else. And that's where it gets kind of weakened.

Now, I am one who is sick of the typical asian horror movie ghost with the long black hair over their faces, and the one eye peeking out. Ala "The Grudge", "The Ring", etc. This film doesn't really have a ghost persay to speak of. A pissed off spirit is certainly at work, but the movie doesn't play things out the same way as most asian horror films do where some kids see the ghost, the ghost gets them, and then we move on to the next person who's gonna be "got".

This film makes the deaths a lot more elaborate, and a lot more unpredictable. But it doesn't go hard with the blood and gore. Most of the deaths are very much suggested, and happen in a whirlwind of spectral activity where the ghost attacks through the cadaver, and next thing ya know, another person has bitten the dust. But that's where the movie meets unscary territory. Truth be told, most of the scenes where people are killed come off more as comical due to how they unfold and how the spirit attacks and later on, kills them off.

None of it is truly bone-chilling ala earlier asian horror cinema such as "Ringu", "The Red Shoes", etc. In this movie, Son seemed to want to rely more on killing off his characters in a way where you kind of laugh at how it all goes down, but due to the setting of the anatomy class, which is a very depresisng set piece I should mention, and the situation the film is absed around in general, the film still manages to withhold many horror movie elements. Even when a black-humor-laden kill happens on screen.

The characters are also pretty forgettable, and don't do anything really spectacular to stand out amongst each other. I don't know at this point whether to be worried about asian horror cinema, or to just think that the weak links in it as a genre, are starting to become more frequent. I always expect more than just one-dimensional and extremely disposable characters when it comes to asian horror.

But this film didn't give me that. Instead, it gave me a bunch of silly and weird characters in terms of the students. With the adults being the only serious characters of the film. But I can also say as a matter of fact, that these characters, as flawed as they were, weren't nearly as annoying or obnoxious as the latest gaggle of teens or young adults in the latest indie slasher movie.

"Cadaver" concludes on a very eerie note, and wraps up the story in a very professional and solid fashion, and that pretty much helps glaze and smooth over the pic's character weaknesses. ''Cadaver" is certainly outside-the-box when it comes to what you'd usually consider a solid asian horror film. But it has just enough strong horror elements, and dark and moody cinematography to make the grade, so to speak.

Positives:Great cinematography which captures the mood and feel of what an anatomy class or course would be like, very trippy and eerie visuals, and a great ending.

Negatives:As I said in the review, I expected characters a lot better written than the ones we got here. Also the deaths needed some work around the edges.

Overall:Two and a half out of four stars.





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