Review: "Bring Back The Dead" is combines both supernatural and psychological horror
Jia En (Jesseca Liu) doesn’t know what’s there. (Golden Villages Pictures)
Marcus Goh is a former Singapore television scriptwriter. He’s also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 85 minutes (~1.5 hours)
"Bring Back The Dead" is a Chinese horror movie that centres around a grieving mother’s love for her deceased son. Unfortunately, her desperation to be reunited with him leads on her a dangerous quest that ensues in terror. It stars Jesseca Liu (Jia En), Jacko Chiang (De Wei), Liu Ling Ling (Madam Seetoh), and Shawn Tan (Xiao Le).
The first thing you’ll notice about “Bring Back The Dead” is how beautifully shot it is, and the care and effort put into bringing out the best visuals from each scene. It’s the first Singaporean horror movie of 2015, and it’s a good one to start the year with. If you’re worried about any potential standard slapstick in this movie, rest assured that there’s none. It’s a proper Singaporean film that respects its audience and its script.
Xiao Le (Shawn Tan). (Golden Village Pictures)
Highlights
Strong emotional resonance
Admittedly, the plan to call back a spirit is filled with so many problems on so many levels, making it one of the dumbest things anyone can do. Yet Jesseca Liu’s performance as Jia En shows you her vulnerability and desperation, which in turn gives her the emotional grounds for her to embark on this less-than-practical quest. This also serves to highlight the depth of her love and sorrow – why else would she do something so terrible?
Strong local flavour
The set up of the household, the unquantifiable mystique of priests and shamans, and the other Singaporean marriage issues all help to cement this as a uniquely Singaporean film. That only increases the creepiness of the film, because it strikes so close to home. It could very well be happening next door, and you’d only have a thin concrete wall to protect you from a vengeful ghost.
The psychological horror from the unreliable narrator
From to the backstory of certain characters, you slowly learn that their depictions of what has happened may not be due to ghostly forces, but internal delusions. This uncertainty amplifies the horror - exactly which manifestations are all in the head, and which ones are truly threats to the household?
Long drawn tension
The best horror comes from the unknown – which means that if you can’t see the ghost, your own imagination fills in the blanks with what would terrify you the most. “Bring Back The Dead” employs this technique fully, only integrating special effects sparingly but proficiently. This provides the breathless tension and a lingering, disturbing feeling through the movie, instead of just relying purely on the shock factor.
Madam Seetoh (Liu Ling Ling). (Golden Village Pictures)
Letdowns
Uneven pacing
The movie lumbers to a start, before it springs the premise upon you. While some parts are filled with surprising reveals and tense moments, a good portion of the film is also dedicated to slow, artistic shots that don’t gel well with the horror portions of the movie.
Backstory of the antagonist
The background of the antagonist comes out of nowhere. There’s very little to foreshadow this unexpected development, and not enough done to make this a believable rationale. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute rather than being a planned revelation, and it hurts the climax and the resolution of the movie as you wonder how it all fits together.
The cemetery. (Golden Village Pictures)
"Bring Back The Dead" is an excellent horror film laden with simmering, intense horror rather than being a shockfest. It stays on in your subconscious later, filling you with a sense of unease as you think back to the nailbiting suspense of the movie.
Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? Indeed!
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? Yes,
"Bring Back The Dead" opens in cinemas 8 January, 2015 (Thursday).
