Promotional material for The House that Never Dies With the sepulchral vibe created in numerous posters featuring coffins Cheap S'well Azure Leopard Bottles 17oz UK , an old mansion and ghost-like characters, my curiosity for the new horror film The House that Never Dies was incredibly stoked. Ever more attractive was the fact that the house depicted in the films, the No.81 Chaoyangmen Inner Street house, is one of the four renowned "haunted houses" in Beijing.
During promotional events, the film's producers said that they had spent three years and millions of yuan preparing for the film Cheap S'well Peacock Bottles 17oz UK , and although I usually remain skeptical when it comes to domestic horror films, the big talk, well-made posters and creepy trailer gave me hope that this would be a decent horror film. However, once again the domestic horror industry has let me down.
Seen it all before
In 2012, American horror film The Cabin in the Woods satirized the numerous clichés found in slasher films by taking the typical plot of a bunch of college kids heading to a remote cabin in the woods and turning it on its head. Throughout the film the typical roles we see in horror films Cheap S'well Snow Orchid Bottles 17oz UK , the hero, the tramp, the virgin and the comic relief appear and are made fun of, and we watch as the cast are chased down one by one by classic creatures such as zombies, werewolves and whatnot.
The film left a huge impression on me Cheap S'well Floral Blush Bottles 17oz UK , because if we made a similar satirical film, the list of clichés that have existed in domestic horror films for years now would be pretty long. While watching The House that Never Dies it occurred to me that director Yip Wai-man must also have been thinking of this list, because while the film was not meant to be satirical in nature it certainly contains a number of these clichés.
Cliché No.1: Most female ghosts have long straight black hair that covers their entire face and wear long white dresses; if they died because of some injustice done to them and are full of anger, then they wear red instead.
Cliché No.2: Due to censorship requirements, ghosts Cheap Liberty London X S'well Kyoto Bottles 17oz UK , spirits and other supernatural elements are not allowed to appear. No matter how many ghosts and supernatural events show up or occur in a movie, they can always be explained in some logical manner such as a crazed killer murdering everyone and deliberating making it seem like something supernatural to cover up his crimes, or that characters in the film were given some kind of drug that made them hallucinate.
Cliché No.3: A character looks into the mirror where their image becomes distorted and a creepy long-haired ghost tries to attack them.
Cliché No.4: Women and children are key elements.
Cliché No.5: Things turn out to be a nightmare within a nightmare.
Cliché No.5: Blood flowing out of the tap.
Fed up with all these stereotypical tricks, I just couldn't find anything in the film genuinely scary, except for a few sudden loud sound effects Cheap S'well Titanium Bottles 17oz UK , which really should be considered as the worst trick in the book.
By the end of the film I was left wondering just how much time the producers spent on writing the script during their three-years of preparation, since most of the plot didn't make much sense.
The film tells the story of a notable family who lives in the house right after the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). When the family's third son falls in love with a prostitute named Lu (played by Ruby Lin), his request to marry her is refused and instead the family force Lu to marry their second recently deceased son in a posthumous wedding ceremony.
Going from the wedding directly to the funeral, the family throws Lu into a coffin with the pale-faced dead body of her new husband.
At this point I was sure something creepy was about to happen, maybe the dead body would suddenly move or whispers from beyond the grave would be heard Cheap S'well Rose Gold Bottles 17oz UK , but no, instead the third son arrives, saves her from the coffin and decides to marry her right then and there.
Actually at that point the film does get a bit scary as the two have a small wedding ceremony and immediately begin to consummate their marriage right next to the corpse of the dead second brother. Still though that's not the kind of "creepy" I was looking for from a haunted house movie.
A sad trend
There have been numerous attempts at making domestic horror films over the past few years, but so far no one has succeeded in making a good one. Curse of the Deserted, Bunshinsaba 2 Cheap S'well White Gold Ombré Bottles 17oz UK , Seven Nights, The Deserted Inn… all these horror films have no more than a four out of 10 on many review sites.
However, no matter how low these films are rated, film makers still manage to turn a profit due to low production costs and relatively high box office results. For instance, Mysterious Island (2011) was made for only 5 million yuan ($800 Cheap S'well Milky Way Bottles 17oz UK ,000), but earned 90 million yuan at the box office.
It seems that The House that Never Dies is also going to follow this distressing trend. Within just one day of hitting cinemas on July 18, it earned over 45 million yuan, a week later and it has now broke 100 million, the first domestic horror film to do so.
There are good sides to this trend Cheap S'well Echo Sport Cap Sport Cap Bottles 17oz UK , which can be seen in the film. For one the production values are of very high quality, as too are the special effects. According to the production team they spend quite a bit of time recreating a same-sized replica of the original house in Beijing. This at least indicates that film companies are willing to put more time and money into making higher quality horror films and trying to improve their skills at creating scary effects.
However, until films start getting their plots straight and start coming up with some genuinely scary situations in for their films, movies like The House that Never Dies are best avoided.
A policewoman arranges household registration (hukou) certificates in a police station in Yunc
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