On their way to a freshman retreat in the woods, a group of students are sidetracked when the route to their forest destination is closed due to a storm. Stupidly, the teens decide to follow some backwoods stranger to another road that leads to the same point. What a convenient happenstance there! Unfortunately, this route involved their ten-ton bus having to cross a rickety wooden bridge built about 200 years prior. As expected, their overweight bus cracks through the weak bridge and, in a wickedly vicious crash, plunges to the lake below killing several of the riders. Those who survive the crash head into the woods in search of safety. As luck would have it, however, there is a worse fate for them waiting on the way: a vicious killer who is looking for some prey.
When I first jumped onto the Asian-horror bandwagon, I began to realize that what I was seeing from the more popular films was sorely lacking in variety. The majority of what I found tended to lean towards the "vengeful ghost" story. So, to mix things up, I sought out a nice little slasher. Basically, I did get what I expected; but, for my first foray into Asian slasher cinema, I wish I would have gotten a bit more. Scared is basically a compilation of other past horror movies jumbled together in one average-level teen slasher. The first few kills are almost taken directly from the Final Destination series. The story & killer are reminiscent of many past slashers, from Just Before Dawn, Wrong Turn, and even Jeepers Creepers due to the long coat and beat up old truck. The best thing about this killer, though, is that he always seems to find SOMETHING to try to murder with: sickles, machetes, cars. . . or a friggin' bulldozer. The main teen characters are, well, similar to the same annoying teens from most slasher flicks. . . mainly due to the fact that I really didn't care about a single one of them. The acting, for the most part, was pretty mediocre. The kids were extremely irritating, their overreactions to EVERYTHING made no sense in the situations, and it wasn't helped by the dialogue (or maybe by the awful subtitles I got). While the film offers little-to-no scares, it does have a pretty fine amount of slasher gore and inventive kills (the phone-booth scene was fantastic) that really gives a reason to watch. Also, there are cute Asian schoolgirls running around. I won't, to save any shred of liking this movie, comment on the ending however.
Final Verdict: 6/10
-AP3-
When I first jumped onto the Asian-horror bandwagon, I began to realize that what I was seeing from the more popular films was sorely lacking in variety. The majority of what I found tended to lean towards the "vengeful ghost" story. So, to mix things up, I sought out a nice little slasher. Basically, I did get what I expected; but, for my first foray into Asian slasher cinema, I wish I would have gotten a bit more. Scared is basically a compilation of other past horror movies jumbled together in one average-level teen slasher. The first few kills are almost taken directly from the Final Destination series. The story & killer are reminiscent of many past slashers, from Just Before Dawn, Wrong Turn, and even Jeepers Creepers due to the long coat and beat up old truck. The best thing about this killer, though, is that he always seems to find SOMETHING to try to murder with: sickles, machetes, cars. . . or a friggin' bulldozer. The main teen characters are, well, similar to the same annoying teens from most slasher flicks. . . mainly due to the fact that I really didn't care about a single one of them. The acting, for the most part, was pretty mediocre. The kids were extremely irritating, their overreactions to EVERYTHING made no sense in the situations, and it wasn't helped by the dialogue (or maybe by the awful subtitles I got). While the film offers little-to-no scares, it does have a pretty fine amount of slasher gore and inventive kills (the phone-booth scene was fantastic) that really gives a reason to watch. Also, there are cute Asian schoolgirls running around. I won't, to save any shred of liking this movie, comment on the ending however.
Final Verdict: 6/10
-AP3-
