[The Red Shoes]
Plot:A woman who finds a pair of pink high heels on a subway platform soon realizes that jealousy, greed, and death follow them wherever they go.

Cast:Hye-su Kim, Seong-su Kim, Yeon-ah Park.

My Thoughts:The formula is beginning to get stale.

Review:"The Red Shoes" is another in a long line of asian horror films that focus on cursed objects, and the severe consequences that occur when someone discovers said objects and decide to take them home. The pic focuses on a pair of red shoes which have seen much tragedy, dating back many years ago. Now...anyone who sees them automatically falls in love with them, and simply must have them. But once they take the shoes, a horrific death is sure to follow.

Only with asian horror can someone take a formula as simple as a pair of cursed shoes, and make it into something worth watching. It takes a certain amount of discipline and creativity to create a story based around something this simple. Similar to how it takes a certain kind of music artist to write a song about something simple and have it be a hit. But the problem with "The Red Shoes" is it doesn't rely much on scares as other asian horrors do. It more plays up the effect the shoes have on people who see them.

Because the shoes were first cursed when the wearer was killed out of an act of jealousy and greed, which was engineered by the all powerful emotion of love...those who take the shoes in their moment of being driven by the same emotion, suffer the same fate as the previous owner. An interesting conundrum indeed, but scares are lacking in this film up until a certain point. Yeah, asian horror films always focus on the story, no problem with that....but most manage to deliver scares while doing so.

"The Red Shoes" doesn't, and actually slips into a very dramatic area where it resides until the final act where the movie then breaks out the A-typical female ghost with long, black, hair. In between it's freaky and graphic start, and it's disturbing ending...the middle portion of the film offers up a low body count, hardly any terror, and a group of characters who get annoying really quickly. Especially the single mother and her daughter, who are the focal point characters of the movie, as the mother discovers the shoes and so her obsession with them begins as she brings them home.

Unlike the mother and daughter in "Dark Water", who were actually quite charming....the mother and daughter in "The Red Shoes" get intolerable early on. Especially when the shoes catch the eye of the daughter, and she too becomes obsessed with them. Leading to a string of fights between ehr and ehr mother over the shoes. The writer of the film was obviously out to make a statement with the picture, about how possessions can take the place of people in the lives of some, especially those who are in a vulnerable state or in a state of flux, such as the lead female character in this film who is going through a divorce and is for the first time....raising her daughter single-handedly.

Then add to that her growing crush on the guy she hired to design her apartment...complicaitng matters much. But the message gets caught up in the fact that the shoes have a bloody and dark history to them, so you really aren't sure if this woman is being driven by her need for something to cling to in her current state of life, or is she truly under the influence of a supernatural force. One of those options becomes more and more evident throughout the picture though, as one character who steals the shoes from the single-mom who found them, finds her fate sealed by said act.

"The Red Shoes" does have a few highlight scenes though, including one where a waterflal of blood engulfs a character from above, can't enough of those in horror now-a-days. But it's best moments are in the final act, which takes place inside a train-station where the mom has to choose between the shoes and her daughter, a choice which could result in life or death for both of them. But overall, "The Red Shoes" does manage to be a decent picture...despite overdramatics which hurt it considerably.

Positives:A few standout moments such as a the blood-waterfall-from-above, and the very dark ending.

Negatives:The middle portion of the film relies too heavily on male/female drama. Not a very high bodycount, and scares were lacking for the most part.

Overall:Two out of four stars.





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