[The Eye 10]
Plot:Ted, his cousin May, her best friend April and April's boyfriend, Kofei take a vacation to Thailand to visit their Thai buddy, Chongkwai, who shows them a book of ten ways to see ghosts. And the game begins.

Cast:Bo-lin Chen, Yan Kam Ching, Ng Wing Chuen, Leung Cjun Fai, Yu Gu, Tanyapan Jansiw, Chan Yui Kei, Bongkoj Khongmalai, Isabella Leong, Ray MacDonald, Lee Siu Ming, Pisamai Pakdeevijit, Viparat Saejing, Or Fei Tat, Boonsong Vaesong, Wong Pui Wah, Chaleuy Wongdee, Kate Yeung, Nicha Youngvisat.

My Thoughts:Quite bad.

Review:The Pang brothers managed to shock asian and american audiences alike with their horror pic "Gwan Gai" (The Eye), back in 2002, and they followed that up with a decent sequel in 2004, although the two brothers just directed that film instead of writing it. "The Eye 3" or "The Eye 10" is the follow up to "The Eye 2", but doesn't continue on exactly where part two left off. After starting off with a wild possession scene...the films follows a group of teens who visit Thailand to see a friend. Upon arriving there, they become intrigued by a book which reads "10 ways to see ghosts". They decide to test out one of the methods of seeing spectres, and well.....you can pretty much guess what happens next.

The ghosts show up, which equals T-R-O-U-B-L-E for the group of friends. "The Eye 10'' is the point where any series should just call it a day. After "The Eye", which was serious horror....and the sequel, which chose to push things over toward the weird side of the spectrum, while still managing to keep it's serious, creepy, eerie roots for the most part in tact.....part three just abandons all concepts of serious horror (except ghosts), and goes comical. The pic mixes black humor with ghostly imagery, and quirky characters. This is a formula which simply does not work, considering the characters become annoying very early on, and when the ghosts are released due to the book, it really comes off as a stupid american B-movie instead of the more mature, well written sort of picture we're used to from asian horror filmmakers.

Messing around with ghost books, sprit materials, etc. is more reserved for american horror films, a steeple which pretty much shows the lack of common sense most americans have towards the supernatural. It's rare in an asian horror film if someone is responsible, or actively participates in bringing about some supernatural catastrophe. Usually it's a circumstantial situation where the person or persons has no control over a bad situation which just happens to happen to them. But this movie sets itself up to fail by having these dumb kids mess around with this book, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next.

Most of the film after it's first act is spent watching, and waiting for the group of kids to begin being stalked by the spirits which have followed them home, and waiting to see what their plans are for the group. Although if there is one twist to this films otherwise predictable storyline....it's that these ghosts seem more interested in playing darkly humorous pranks on their summoners instead of killing them. This is further underscored as a plot point during a few very hilarious sequences involving Japanese breakdancing, and a seemingly possessed basketball.

No...I'm not kidding about either of those. This hurts the film from a horror perspective, but at the same time...does give it a few humorous moments, which are few and far between however. The acting beyond Isabella Leong isn't really that great, which is another rareity in asian horror movies. Not much bad acting, but in the case of this picture....which tried to be a horror comedy, instead of a real horror picture.....I believe this is the reason for the poor acting. It's been my experience that asian actors are better at serious material instead of humorous material, well except for maybe Jackie Chan.

"The Eye 10" doesn't offer much in the realm of real scares throughout however, when you take out a slightly creepy summoning scene at the beginning, and a few dimly-lit hallway moments where the ghosts decide to spook one of the teens when they're walking down corridors alone. The films final act is just as bad as it gets, and quite franly doesn't make alot of sense either. It kind of felt to me like maybe the Pang brothers who directed the film, wanted to close the trilogy on a comedic note after starting it on such a blood-curdling one. I guess that's okay if it's what they chose to do, but as a film in the overall 'Eye" trilogy, "The Eye 10" is certainly the weakest one of them all.

Positives:The scene at th beginnign when the ghosts are first called up is quite creepy, there's also some slightly eerie spooky-hallway moments in the middle parts of the movie that work well occasionally.

Negatives:Too much comedy, unfunny comedy at that. A lack of real scares or terror, and not many good performances.

Overall:The weakest of the trilogy.





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