The Silenced (aka: Gyeongseonghakyoo: Sarajin sonyeodeul) (2015) 1h 39m

I really like foreign horror films.  Primarily because they're something different.  They give me something new to be scared of.  It's a whole new series of plots, monsters, ghosts, and superstitions that actually spark something inside.  I find myself looking up more info, digging deeper, going further than I do with most American horror films.  So what do I do when one suddenly pulls a very American horror plot?  Actually... I kind of liked it.

The Silenced takes place in an all-girls boarding school/sanitarium.  Our main character, Shizuko, arrives because she has contracted TB.  Over time we find out that there was another girl with the same name that just left/vanished one day.  The girls seem like typical school girls but some have weird freak-out moments.  It's as if they've become possessed.  There are some more traditional Asian horror moments that come into play as well: hands reaching out where there's nobody, girls with long black hair being pulled into impossible spaces, etc.  Shizuko begins to change as well.

I want to write more but I know if I cover any more of the plot then I'll spoil this movie.  Most of the time I don't care if I do, but that's on crap, and I enjoyed watching The Silenced.  It's a slower paced film than what most people may be used to but when it picks up it picks the fuck up.  I spent time actively trying to piece together things rather than having it all figured out from the start.  I also like that the filmmakers use the symbolism of breaking glass so well.  It represents everything from  moments of frailty, to a shift in a person or moment, or even someone's breaking point.  At first it seems tedious until you have that realization of "oh, there is purpose to this."

I give The Silenced a solid 3 cheesy Mazel Tov images out of 5:

Don't forget you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at 30daysofplight

The Host (2006) 2h

I like horror.  I like comedies.  I like horror-comedies.  Sometimes though you can tilt in one direction too much, or teeter-totter between extremes and it takes away from a film.  At the same time, this shit was two hours long so I guess if that's what they were shooting for then they really needed to pad it.

The Host has a simple plot, but there's a lot kind of going on so bare with me on this.  Set in South Korea, the movie focuses on a family consisting of a father in his 60's, two sons (one of which has a daughter), and a daughter that is apparently some sort of archery Olympian (or hot shit archery person, I don't know).  The father, one son, and the son's daughter all live in some snack stand by the river that the father runs.

Back in 2000 some buttlord of a mortician tells his assistant to pour a ton of chemicals down the drain because the bottles got dusty.  These chemicals get in the river and create some kind of amphibious monster that looks like a mix between a lantern fish, a lizard, and a Vaporeon (from Pokémon) mixed with the rad jaws of the Predator race.  So now, in 2006, this monster appears and wrecks the river side and supposedly eats the daughter.  Later the son gets a late night call from his daughter saying she's trapped in a sewer and this sets off the family on an escape from quarantine to find the child.

This could have been shorter, and it could've done with a lot less of the goofier shit in the beginning, but all in all this was an okay film.  The monster looked good, except for one scene where I think they rendered the monster in one program and flames in another program, and those two things were put together and were making a nasty baby.  The acting was good but the characters I didn't really care about.  So middle of the road.  Middle of the South Korean road...

I give The Host 2.5 Vaporeons out of 5 (so you don't have to look it up if you don't know):

Don't forget, you can follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/30daysofplight or on Twitter @30daysofplight