`Spider Forest' Weaves Tangled Web.
Published on | Source
By Joon Soh
Staff Reporter
Living up to its title, the new horror film "Spider Forest" is a web of psychological twists and turns that will leave you trying to get untangled long after you leave the theater. The story does get pretty muddled at times but at its best moments the film is as frightening an experience as they come.
"Spider Forest" begins right in the chaotic thick of things. Kang-min (Kam Woo-sung) wakes up in the middle of a dark, spider-filled forest with little idea of how he got there. He makes his way to a lighted cabin only to find the aftermath of a gruesome murder. A hacked up corpse lies in the living room while his lover is bloodied and dying in the next room.
For the next half hour or so, the film takes the viewer through a confusing and mesmerizing sequence of events that ends with Kang-min getting hit by a car. First-time director Song Il-gon does a successful job maintaining the suspenseful mood as our dazed protagonist frantically tries and fails to make sense of his surroundings.
After such a whirlwind beginning, the film settles down to a more manageable pace. Waking up at the hospital, the battered and bruised Kang-min heads back to the scene of the crime, determined to put together the pieces and the missing days prior to the murders.
Though nothing overtly supernatural occurs, an unreal and melancholy atmosphere pervades throughout "Spider Forest". From the beginning, the boundary between the psychological and the supernatural is hazy, and it doesn't get any clearer as Kang-min probes deeper into the mystery.
Though thoughtful and well-crafted, "Spider Forest" in the end suffers from the same lack of organization felt in other recent local horror thrillers, such as "The Uninvited" and "Faceless Beauty". Whether intentional or not, these films overwhelm the viewers with a mass of symbolic clues and possibilities that ultimately remain unraveled. Of course, part of the enjoyment of such films is to try to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but if the puzzle is made too difficult, frustrated viewers may end up finding other games to play
Staff Reporter
Living up to its title, the new horror film "Spider Forest" is a web of psychological twists and turns that will leave you trying to get untangled long after you leave the theater. The story does get pretty muddled at times but at its best moments the film is as frightening an experience as they come.
"Spider Forest" begins right in the chaotic thick of things. Kang-min (Kam Woo-sung) wakes up in the middle of a dark, spider-filled forest with little idea of how he got there. He makes his way to a lighted cabin only to find the aftermath of a gruesome murder. A hacked up corpse lies in the living room while his lover is bloodied and dying in the next room.
For the next half hour or so, the film takes the viewer through a confusing and mesmerizing sequence of events that ends with Kang-min getting hit by a car. First-time director Song Il-gon does a successful job maintaining the suspenseful mood as our dazed protagonist frantically tries and fails to make sense of his surroundings.
After such a whirlwind beginning, the film settles down to a more manageable pace. Waking up at the hospital, the battered and bruised Kang-min heads back to the scene of the crime, determined to put together the pieces and the missing days prior to the murders.
Though nothing overtly supernatural occurs, an unreal and melancholy atmosphere pervades throughout "Spider Forest". From the beginning, the boundary between the psychological and the supernatural is hazy, and it doesn't get any clearer as Kang-min probes deeper into the mystery.
Though thoughtful and well-crafted, "Spider Forest" in the end suffers from the same lack of organization felt in other recent local horror thrillers, such as "The Uninvited" and "Faceless Beauty". Whether intentional or not, these films overwhelm the viewers with a mass of symbolic clues and possibilities that ultimately remain unraveled. Of course, part of the enjoyment of such films is to try to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but if the puzzle is made too difficult, frustrated viewers may end up finding other games to play
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