Customer Reviews

Art of the Devil

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So ... given my rather glowing review of "Long Khong" (Art of the Devil 2), was "Kong Len Khong" (Art of the Devil) any good? Nah ... the first Art of the Devil turns out to be just a pedestrian Thai horror movie with little horror, a predictable story, some gore (bleeding gullets and razor blades galore) but not much else. Here's the Cliffs Notes summary: A pretty young woman is introduced to a rich middle aged man, and proceeds to have a torrid affair with him. She gets pregnant and blackmails him into paying her off. He gets upset and arranges for her to be gang-raped by three of his rich friends. She gets more upset and pays an evil shaman to bump him and his family (and his lecherous friends and their families as well) off in nasty ways (picture bloody gullets, razor blades, and rusty nails). Then she gets even MORE upset when the estate of the rich man goes to his common-law wife's family (i.e. "unofficial" second wife i.e. concubine/mistress). And so the evil shaman gets more business, casting a love spell on the eldest (illegitimate) son so that his conniving client can sleep her way into the family and then kill them off one by one with the aim of ultimately inheriting the late rich man's estate. But she did not count on the late rich man's plucky young (illegitimate) daughter and her inquisitive reporter friend. And so both her and her evil shaman get their comeuppance in due course, after a lot of eels, cowhides, bloody gullets, razor blades and rusty nails again (which obviously don't mixed well), and gunshots. End of movie. I did say it was a rather pedestrian Thai horror movie.

I saw this movie yesterday and I have to say that ASIAN horror flicks have a way of coming out with original ways for its characters to pass away.

The plot itself wasn't very original. It revolves around a woman scorned and played with a rich married man. When she got impregnated by him, she was paid off by a lot of money then the rich man shared her with his friends. Quite sick if you ask me, but not as sick when she resorted to witchcraft to have her vengeance. With the aid a warlock, she had his entire family killed as well as the rich man who wronged her. She thought that ahe could inherit his estate when everyone was gone. Unbeknowest to her the man had a first family. The story picks off when she becomes the wife of one of his sons, but when he started to suspect something's wrong, she poisons him and tries to pick off the first family one by one. I will not go into further details but in this movie you will see one of the creepiest looking child ghosts since the Locker and the Ring.

My one complaint about the film is the screenplay. It seemed to start near the end and goes back in time as memories and part of a conversation, because of this delivery, the film ended up losing most of the suspense and creepiness it could have achieved. However, the bewitching scenes are a bit creepy, nails, blades among other things being choked up but after awhile it gets redundant. The 2 lead actresses are gorgeous, especially the villainess I hope to see her in other films. The cast all need acting lessons though.

The dvd comes in 5.1 english dubbed but I decided to watch it in Thai as per its original audio. If you are a fan of asian horror, you may want to take a look. The lead actress/villainess is enchanting to look at. So far, the best Thai horror film I've seen is SHUTTER(ART OF THE DEVIL DOESN'T COME CLOSE). That movie creeped me out and I believe it blows away the GRUDGE and THE RING, and it takes a lot to creep me out!!

Hopefully ART OF THE DEVIL 2 will be better. I've read the sypnosis and it looks promising.
Skip it! [2.5 stars]

The movie brings nothing new and is rather predictable but I have a fondness for revenge flicks. A girl gets used and thrown away by a guy and she seeks revenge by going to a man who uses magic. The girl befriends the family and watches as they die in weird ways offering the remaining family members consolation. So nothing new but I enjoyed a few of the death scenes. If you do choose to watch it please make sure you watch it in the Thai audio because the dubbing is really bad.

This film is not for everyone. You must appreciate foreign film to grasp what is happening. Personally, I enjoyed the heck out of it, & when I found out there were two sequels I purchased them without having seen them. The sequels are much better than the original, but you need to see the original to get the ball rolling. You must like gore to enjoy these films.

The movie was not too bad. I stalled in watching it a few times because of the bad reviews but was bored one day and decided to just watch it. Being as I'm from Southeast Asia, I understand a lot about black magic, voodoo, and such (from my old school parents), so it was pretty interesting to see some of the ideas played out on this film. I must say though that some of the black magic was too over the top and very unbelievable but the story line itself was good.

Here's the gist of it. Spoiler alert**** A girl was having an affair with a married man and ended up pregnant with his baby. He paid her off with a lot of money, as he is filthy rich, and shared her with some of his rich friends (practically had them rape her while filming it). She wants him and his family dead so she goes to some shaman and had him cast black magic spells on all his family so she can have his estate, once they are all dead, through her baby. Something something happens in between and unbeknownst to her, all his estate goes to his first common law wife and their kids and so she did the same thing to their family. The only difference this time is she cast a spell on her eldest son and ended up married to the family. Her revenge started from there....******End of spoiler.

All in all, it was a good film to watch. The story line gets a little tricky because it goes back and fourth from present to past and past again to the NOW. Pay close attention to it and I think you will like it....not too bad.