Nightmare (2000) User Reviews

Could have been so much better

[jangu · 4/10 · 19 April 2007]

I'm afraid that I didn't like this movie very much. Apart from a few saving graces, it's nothing to write home about.

J-horror has boomed for the last five-six years but the films themselves have on more than one account been repetitive and carbon copies of a previous success. This is one of them.

Basically this is a supernatural slasher movie. The beginning is promising with chilling scenes from a morgue where a dead girl has her eyes graphically sewn together, but soon after opens them. However, after that, it's quickly downhill for this flick.

To be kind I will start with the things I like about "Gawi". On the plus side, the visuals are gaudy and the movie looks great for it's type. For those who like their horror movies gory there are a few nicely executed (no pun intended) murder scenes. We also get a few good suspense sequences/set-pieces.

However, there are quite a few drawbacks also...

First of all, and my major complaint about this movie, is that the plot skips and jumps forwards and backwards in time with an alarming intensity. Usually that's not a problem for me, but here, where the students look exactly the same no matter what age they are, I was confused on more than one occasion.

The performances are okay I guess (a little hard to tell when you don't know the language), but seem a little stiff. And for a horror movie, I don't think it was scary enough. For a while I was quite bored actually.

Being a fan of giallo movies, I was expecting quite a lot from "Nightmare", but unfortunately I was quite disappointed.

It's hard to keep a secret buried from the dead.

[lost-in-limbo · 4/10 · 2 June 2006]

We see a body of dead girl in a morgue with the coroner trying to close the eyes of the girl, but whatever he tries they won't stay open. After this we move into the future and we follow a group of former school friends who hide a terrible secret, but suddenly they start getting picked off one by one in many grisly ways. Through flashbacks we learn of this awful suicide of a shy girl who was trying to be one of the group, but she was shut out by them because they dug up her past and found out some weird occurrences. So, is she back from the grave seeking revenge?

Oh what a great and always spooky story! Well, that's what I hoping I could say. And 'hoping' was as good as it got. This is an forgettable, so-so supernatural horror flick that I actually watched before, but I went in thinking it was my first viewing. So to my surprise it hit me when I started picking up on certain things, but like I said it's quite a forgettable mix that it felt like a first viewing again. "Nightmare' is just another type of it's field that adds a 'few' changes to the gruel. Oh, please give me something that's a bit more fresh. It doesn't have to be entirely original, but this is one formulaic and at times quite tired J-horror flick. Even though it strings along the usual ghost story involving you guessed right… an evil looking, vengeful chick spirit.

But in spite of my negativity of it being the same old, same old story and jolts. This one kind of entertains when its being grisly and popping in some creepy visuals. The deaths are vividly displayed with bite and some originality. While, the gloomy atmosphere alienates the audience with it's murky lighting. The first scene involving the spirit terrorising one of the girls is one blood-curdling experience, but really when it's not trying to shock you. I found it rather coma inducing and I thought about getting some shut-eye. That might be harsh, but it just didn't go anywhere of any interest between those shock moments. You could say that because the supposed mystery is really not much of one, the unsure story is just simply flat and the characters are a self-centred bunch that you don't really care what happens to them. The disjointed story should have focused more on the spirit than that of these bland characters who have one unconvincing group relationship. It just overplayed its cards by becoming overly muddled and taking too long to get going that when it comes to the climax it's just plain ludicrous. The film's haunting ending is a high point, though.

The film looks fine, although it could have done without the snazzy, quick fire editing and the music score was a bit overbearing in playing up the mood. The performances tread a fine line, but Gyu-ri Kim is strong in the lead role.

It's nothing new and it shamelessly steals ideas, but if you can look past that it delivers some nasty thrills. Although, I found the handling of it rather lethargic, despite the odd effective chills. A standard effort all round I guess, but still it's equally missable.

Nightmare

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 9 February 2008]

The vengeful spirit of Kyung-ah(Ji-won Ha), a young woman who supposedly leaped from the balcony of a building to her death on top of a car's roof below, murders a group of friends, it seems, for no reason. Hye-jin(Gyu-ri Kim)was an unfortunate eye-witness to Kyung-ah's death from the street and finds that one of her friends, Seon-ae(Jeong-yun Choi)has returned from her stay in America. It's been two years since Kyung-ah's demise and Hye-jin is still burdened by troubling nightmares regarding her friend. Seon-ae claims that Kyung-ah follows her everywhere, tormenting her. Soon, a new friend enters Hye-jin's life, a mysterious young woman named Eun-ju..but is this new relationship real or imagined because Eun-ju eerily resembles Kyung-ah. As her friends are found dead by grisly means, Hye-jin must question whether or not Seon-ae is the culprit or perhaps Kyung-ah herself. A major sub-plot concerns a hot-shot lawyer and his lover, both part of the group being slaughtered one at a time. What Hye-jin doesn't know is that her friends hide a horrifying secret which might explain the gruesome events transpiring.

Despite being visually arresting(I thought the camera-work was dazzling and the use of light effective), this film still utilizes the basic "ghostly revenge" supernatural slasher sub-plot. And, the ghostly haunts resemble the Asian horror hits populating the marketplace at the time, such as RINGU & JU-ON:THE GRUDGE. Still, there are enough unpleasant images and some nasty violence to keep one off-guard. There's an overhead shot of a victim lying in her bathtub bleeding as the shower rains upon her and one graphic attack on one male victim in a phone booth after his eye is gouged out. I thought "Nightmare" felt very reminiscent to I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER regarding how a secret kept within a small group leads to their being murdered. Slasher fans might just enjoy this one, but I don't think director Byeong-ki Ahn's film stands out from the pack of Asian horror flicks streaming today. Though, saying that, I do believe his visual eye is beneficial to the horror genre, as is cinematographer Seok-hyeon Lee..they craft a good looking product here, even if the material feels rather deja vu.

Nightmare in Seoul

[Watuma · 20 January 2002]

This South Korean thriller can't claim much originality in its basic story. A group of young adults are linked by a guilty secret from their college days. They start being haunted by visions of someone who was killed accidentally several years before, and begin dying violently themselves. The idea dates back to at least 1980 (PROM NIGHT), and more recently formed the basis for I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. But writer-director An Byung-ki, evidently familiar with Italian gialli, maintains interest by giving the plot a quite convoluted structure plus several bizarre twists and turns as the film progresses. The influence of Dario Argento is specially noticeable. Mr. An also invests the story with enough ambiguity that, until the last scene, we're not sure whether the vengeful ghost seen by the characters is for real or simply a projection of their guilt.

The young cast generally furnish convincing and underplayed performances. Particularly noteworthy are Kim Kyu-ri as a psychology major and Ha Ji-won as the film's enigmatic nemesis. The picture's mood of unease is greatly enhanced by imaginative lighting, smoothly gliding camerawork, sharp editing, and a varied but never intrusive score. KAWEE successfully continues South Korea's recent emergence as a new force in the psychological horror film sub-genre.

Westerners can catch this movie on VCD or DVD under the titles NIGHTMARE and HORROR GAME MOVIE. It's highly recommended.

I was tricked into seeing this movie...

[ManicMuse · 3/10 · 25 September 2005]

The reviews I read for this movie were pretty decent so I decided to check it out. BAD IDEA! This is another movie about a ghost out for revenge against a group friends. The story is stupid, mix two parts Ringu with one part Prom Night, a sprinkle of I Know what you did Last Summer, and add a tiny dash of Single White Female - now blend until completely nonsensical. There is nothing new to this plot, and revisiting the clichés I've grown so fond of wasn't even entertaining this time. This movie jumps to and from the past too much, and once I made sense of it all I realized it still didn't make much sense. Characters go from sane to psycho killer in the blink of an eye. Speaking of characters, they are all your stereotypical favorites - the greedy selfish lawyer, the egocentric actress, the has-been baseball star, the video voyeur, the bitter girl, the spooky quiet chick, the 'nicer-than-nice' nice girl, a freakin' black cat... and I didn't care about any of them. Perhaps a better writer could have made the movie work, there were some decent scenes in it, but overall this movie was a mess. I should also mention a certain 'video tape' that would have been IMPOSSIBLE to shoot.

This movie isn't the worst Asian horror has to offer by far, but it is still pretty bad. If you just want to see some creepy images in the dark, or just want to laugh out loud at some over the top acting, or just want to yell "you're stupid!" at a movie screen, or just want to have another Asian horror flick up your sleeve when someone asks you how many you've seen - this movie is for you.

Those seeking a decent plot look elsewhere.

Not good.

[vegansXe · 2/10 · 11 November 2007]

The following are some of the most blaring problems with this movie: 1) Clichés abound. Seriously, awful "twists" are everywhere.

2) The narrative jumps around in time, which would be fine if done well, but it's not.

3) Lame characters that don't develop so much as either remain utterly static, or drastically change for no good reason.

4) Big one: HORRIBLE ACTING. Over the top from nearly every person.

The following are some of the best points from the movie: 1) The lead is damn good looking.

As I see it, there are only two kinds of people who would be into this movie: a) People who can sit through 90 minutes of tripe simply because the lead is attractive.

b) People who often think to themselves, "I like Hollywood dreck rife with clichés and overacting, but if only I could watch it in Korean..." There's a lot of good Korean cinema out there, so why waste your time with garbage?

Friday the 13th, Korean-style

[RJC-99 · 2/10 · 10 September 2004]

If you appreciate the renaissance in Asian horror, don't bother with Gawi. The film scarcely deserves mention alongside A-list work such as Ringu, A Tale of Two Sisters, Cure, and Ju-On (or even such good material as The Eye or Inner Senses). Those films brim with subtleties, unexpected imagery, rich characters, and a decidedly non-Western take on what's frightening. Gawi is strung together with the leftover limbs and organs of everything that has made American horror lousy for the past twenty-five years.

The film tries to blend Asian ghost story and Hollywood slasher flick, but it's a bad fit. One aesthetic is bound to smother the other; guess which? Having no story of their own to tell the filmmakers loot Ringu for an evil-child subplot, but the situation is hopeless. Clichés, crap characters, witless plotting, a dull ghost, ho hum.

Friendship, Betrayal, Guilty Complex and Revenge

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 4 August 2007]

When Sun-ae (Jeong-yun Choi) returns from the United States of America to Seul after two years of absence, her friend Hye-jin (Gyu-ri Kim) welcomes her at home. Sun-ae is disturbed and tells Hye-jin that the ghost of their deceased friend Kyung-ah (Ji-won Ha) is haunting and chasing her. Hye-jin recalls when she introduced her new friend Eun-ju to their former close college friends: She-hoon (Jun Jeong), who used to tape every moments with his camera; Hyun-joon (Ji-tae Yu), who was a promising baseball player before damaging his knee; Jung-wook (Jun-Sang Yu), who has become a prominent lawyer; and Jung Mi-ryoung (Hye-yeong Jo), who works in advertisement on television. The jealous and envious Sun-ae revealed a secret from the past of Eun-ju causing a tragedy in the group. When She-hoon, Hyun-joon and Mi-young are killed, Hye-jin finds a videotape hiding a dark covenant of her friends about the death of Kyung-ah.

This ambiguous horror movie is another great example of the high-quality of South-Korea (and Asia in general) in this genre. Director Byeong-ki Ahn uses a remarkable cinematography and angles of camera to disclose a plot where the viewer is never sure whether a revengeful fiend or an insane character is killing Hye-jin's friend, and if Sun-ae has guilty complex or is really being chased by the ghost of Kyung-ah until the very last scene. The cast has great performances, the actresses are extremely gorgeous and Ji-won Ha is one of the most beautiful actresses I have ever seen. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Korean teen horror film in the mould of Scream and "I know what you did last summer"

[joebloggscity · 5/10 · 2 May 2006]

Asian cinema has been on a roll in recent years, rewriting the rules of the horror genre in particular. "Gawi" though seems to turn the clock back and returns favours to the American teen horror market. The film centres round a group of friends reminiscing at first about the suicide of an old acquaintance, and then when each begins to be picked off grizzly one at a time, they start to fear what they can't see blaming it on her revengeful return.

The film basically combines together influences from Scream, "I know what you did last summer" and adds the now obligatory "loner female with long black hair and a troublesome background" from the Asian markets (someone please now give this a rest!). The shocks are never really scary and the acting can be quite lame.

Confusing at first, you will get the hang of it, and the last 20 mins are quite interesting as the film gently twists. Regardless it is not a good film, and very unoriginal. Not by any means the worst, but simply a poor straight-to-video effort in my opinion.

a fairly solid Korean slasher

[movieman_kev · 7/10 · 5 September 2005]

The film starts off with a morgue attendant sewing the eyes of a recent corpse shut, when he leaves the copses eyes pop back open. Flash forward two years and Sun-ae returns to South Korea after being abroad in America for two years appearing to be afraid of a ghost, Kyung-ah whom committed suicide, that she believes is following her around and the spirit wants revenge on something that wronged her. Now someone is murdering her friends. The movie alternates between flashbacks and modern day to create quite a good deal of tension throughout. The acting is good and although I pretty much knew where the plot was going fairly often on, I still enjoyed it. Now I'm looking forward to the directors next film, "Phone" which I heard nothing but good things about.

My Grade: B-

Media Blasters DVD Extras: Making of; Nightmare on Television Promo; Theatrical Trailer; and trailers for "Attack the Gas Station", "Terror Taxi", "Choking Hazard", "Rojo Sangre", "Hiruko the Goblin", "One Missed Call", & "Samurai Resurrection"

Notes: Comes with a holographic slip cover

Korean "Ghost Story"

[Gafke · 8/10 · 30 November 2005]

A small circle of close friends is disrupted by a new presence, a withdrawn and somewhat shy girl named Eun-ju. The kindly Hye-jin takes Eun-ju under her wing and introduces her to everyone, unaware that she has met Eun-ju before...or has she? Eun-ju wins the affections of the handsome baseball player and incurs the wrath of the jealous Sun-ae. At a casual gathering one night, Sun-ae reveals that Eun-ju is actually Kyungh-ah, a little girl from the small village where she and Hye-jin grew up. Kyungh-ah was suspected of being possessed by demons and was said to have caused the death of several people, including Hye-jin's father. Eun-ju commits suicide that night by throwing herself from a roof top...but a few years later, her friends start seeing her dark ghost following them around and staring at them menacingly. Soon, the friends are dying, but is it really the ghost of Eun-ju back for vengeance? Or is it the seriously disturbed Sun-ae who has just "run away" from an American mental institution? Or could it be the young ambitious lawyer who has everything to lose? What secret are the friends hiding about Eun-ju's death?

This film is not as slick and sharp as "Phone" but it's not bad either. Fans of the movie "Ghost Story" may appreciate this Asian take on the tale, as "Nightmare" has essentially the same plot. There are some great visuals here, particularly with the ghost of Eun-ju, and the performances are all very good. There's even a little gore here for splatter fans. The movie may move a little slowly for people who prefer their horror fast, bloody and constantly scary, but it has an interesting story to tell and will be appreciated by fans of "Ringu" "Ju-On" and the aforementioned "Phone."

Korea's answer to PROM NIGHT

[Iguanatic · 7/10 · 17 June 2003]

The story premise isn't new: three years after a group of college friends drive a girl with Sadako-like powers to kill herself, they all start dying violent deaths. What's unclear until the final act is whether the spirit of the deceased girl has come back to wreak her revenge, or whether one of the group has cracked up and is committing the murders themselves.

Fans of Korean cinema may remember lead actress Gyu-ri Kim as the Jessica Alba lookalike in "Whispering Corridors" (aka Yeogo Goedam) and she turns in another fantastic performance here. All of the cast members do, in fact - with Ji-won Ha as the Sadako-like girl mentioned above particularly impressive in the flashback scenes. Director/Writer Byeong-ki Ahn, who went on to direct "Phone" in 2002, shows a competent hand at direction with a few excellent set pieces and some genuinely spine-tingling suspense. If you manage to avoid jumping at least three times during this film, you're a braver soul than I!

NIGHTMARE's shortcomings come in the plot department, with a few plot holes and convoluted story strands making it hard to follow at times. You're also not sure whether it's a slasher pic or a ghost story - but that's intentional, I suppose! Watch out for the final twist at the very end - it completely turns the rest of the film on its head - which, although out of the blue, at least leaves the viewer in no doubt as to what's happened.

Had this been a little easier to follow throughout, NIGHTMARE would be getting my highest recommendation of 5 stars. As it is, though, fans of Asian horror shouldn't be disappointed and - although it's no RINGU or THE EYE - there's plenty to keep the average horror fan entertained. ***.5 / *****

Above average slasher. Not the most original example of the genre, but enjoyable.

[Infofreak · 25 May 2003]

'Nightmare' is only the second Korean horror movie I have seen. The first was the overrated 'The Eye', which many people seem to love (I don't). Personally I enjoyed this less known supernatural thriller a lot more. It owes a huge debt to classic American slasher movies of the past, but they themselves were inspired by Italian giallo, so it doesn't really matter who did what first, as long as it entertains. And this very effective thriller does that. I can see certain superficial similarities between 'Nightmare' and the much hyped Japanese horror film 'Ringu', but the approach is quite different, and I think this is the better of the two movies. The story concerns a group of school friends hiding a secret from the past, which comes back to haunt them. Standard horror fare true, but 'Nightmare' makes this familiar material worth watching just the same. And having a few very cute Korean girls among the cast certainly does it no harm! Worth a look, it's better than you'd think.

Night of the Haunted

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 7 September 2008]

***SPOILERS*** Far too complicated with a completely out of the blue and off the wall ending in effect spoiled, what was up until then, the movies heart thumping final and thus makes Nightmare- or Gawi as its called in Korean-a far less effective horror/thriller then it should have been.

The film has to do with this Korean collage student Seon-Ae who was, its obvious from her conduct in the movie, under psychiatric treatment in the USA as an exchange student for the last two years. Coming back home to Seoul South Korea Seon-Ae stays at her friend's pad fellow student Hye-Jin. That's until she can get her very mixed up head back together again.

For some strange reason Seon-Ae feels that she's being haunted by the ghost of Kyung-Ah who was killed, or committed suicide, two years ago. It was not long after that tragic event that she herself suffered a paralyzing nervous breakdown.

The down to earth and straight as an arrow Hye-Jin at first dismisses Seon-Ae ridicules story about being haunted by Kyung-Ah's ghost as just one of her psychiatric prescribed drug induced hallucinations. It's not until later when members of this student study group "A Few Good Men", as well as women, that Hye-Jin is a member of start getting murdered by someone who's got a vendetta against them that she changes her mind. It's the members of this student group who in fact were with Kyung-Ah the very last day of her life! That's when she either fell jumped or was pushed off the "A Few Good Men" studio's building headquarter's roof falling some ten stories to her death below!

There's a number of really gut wrenching scenes of members of "A Few Good Men" getting it from the unknown and unseen killer who were made to believe is the late Kyung-Ah's Ghost. ****SPOILER ALERT***The killer in fact is far more alive then were made to believe and is using Kyung-Ah's perceived evil and vindictive spirit to terrorize those who may have an inkling to his, or her, identity.

All this murder and mayhem goes back two years to the night of Kyung-Ah untimely death that in fact was in no way as cut and dry we were lead to believe. It's the killers intention to murder all of the witnesses to Kyung-Ah's death that he himself, when he freaked out on camera over a harmless kitty cat, was mostly responsible for.

What turned out to be the killers ultimate demise was one of his victims video nut Se-Hun filming the entire gruesome and blood curdling event. And there's also another one of his murder victims the washed out, after suffering a broken leg, baseball player Hyng-Jun getting a hold of the incriminating video tape and blackmailing him with it!

By the time the, who was normal up until then, crazed homicidal maniac got his hands on the video tape the cat, who in the video was as black as "Midnight", was already out of the bag.

Having murdered some half dozen people already the Killer was now determined to murder two more in order for him to finalize what he thinks is going to be his "Perfect Crime"! The killers two targeted victims are what turns out to be the only persons left alive who can expose him as well as the reason for his murderous rampage: Hye-Jin & Seon-Ae!

Creepier than the average slasher.

[daniel-mkatz · 7/10 · 1 June 2006]

I was just reading all the reviews claiming this movie to be just a Korean version of a Hollywood slasher movie, but I found that there was something to it that I Know What You Did Last Summer just couldn't capture. It's true that this movie is nothing particularly original plot-wise, but there is definitely something in the idea of blending Hollywood slashers with Asian ghost movies that works.

The result is a slasher with more gore than Hollywood has the 'guts' to do these days (sorry), which is always a good thing, as well as a Sadako-like character that adds a much creepier edge to the film than a guy wearing a scream mask. Add some very effective directing and acting (with the exception of one certain 'lawyer') and you have a film that's definitely worth watching.

Pretty spooky South Korean slasher.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 9/10 · 7 October 2003]

"Gawi"/"Nightmare" is obviously inspired by "Prom Night" and Japanese hit "Ringu",but director Byeong Ki-Ahn managed to generate a wonderfully creepy atmosphere throughout it.The film is extremely well-made and photographed.Ha Ji-weon gives a genuinely unnerving performance as a Kyung-Ah.The scene,where she walks through the busload of corpses with bloodied face,is truly eerie and memorable. The film is pretty standard,but it managed to scare me,so I'd recommend it to anyone interested in horror.There is also a fair amount of blood and gore,so gore-hounds won't be disappointed too.My rating:9 out of 10.

A mediocre horror movie. Not bad, but not the best.

[ranjeet2000 · 6/10 · 25 August 2002]

This movie I thought would be a lot better. I didn't find it that scary, but more gorey. The flashback & present time is not distinguised clearly. It's shocking what you discover as the movie goes on. This an okay movie if you're really interested in Horror flicks, but don't get your hopes up.

Fans of "Phone" will like this

[artemis0302 · 6/10 · 19 November 2005]

"Gawi" (aka Nightmare/Scissors/Horror Game Movie) was Byeong-Ki Ahn's first horror film. It's a decent, if unoriginal attempt at horror, and is somewhat effective. Then again, this movie is chock-full of flaws.

First is the lack of coherent continuity. The movie confusingly switches from the past and present without warning, and has quite a few badly-placed flashback sequences. The next thing is the complete lack of originality. There is not one but TWO long-haired vengeful female ghosts, gory deaths reminiscent of every other slasher in the world, an ending clearly jacked from every other sequel-promising slasher. The last thing is how ineffective it is: yes, it is effective to a degree, but not as scary as it could have been. Having said all that, "Gawi" does have a few good twists along the way, and I must say, a fairly gripping mystery story going for it.

If you like slashers, or liked the director's later movie "Phone", this is recommended.

My rating: 6/10

SHE KNOWS WHERE WE LIVE AND SHE'S COMING

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 23 May 2019]

It seems in Korea when a person is possessed by a demon, they are shunned. Crazy Kia (Ji-won Ha) has been blamed for a number of deaths and is now at college part of film club called "A Few Good Men" which include a lengthy explanation why the sexist title isn't sexist.

Later Kia takes a swan dive off a building and is haunting the rest of the club through illusion and knives. (We see her dead in the first scene.)

The dubbing left much to be desired. At one point it was so bad, I had to laugh at the exorcism scene. Also aspects of Asian horror movie custom to sew shut eyes and mouth to prevent the deceased from casting evil spells etc. went by without explanation so when the eyes came open through the sewn stitches, it's meaning was diminished in western culture.

I liked the film, but the foreign aspect of the film made many scenes difficult to enjoy.

Parental Guidance: At least 1 f-bomb. No sex. Corpse nudity.

Review: Nightmare(2000)

[crueltwistoffate · 8/10 · 24 September 2005]

Buying this movie was a blind buy...I knew a little about the flick but something about the film had me interested in it so I bought. I hoped it would be as good as the other Asian horror flicks I have been watching lately and boy...was this film great. I really liked this film a lot, I loved the way it was directed, I loved the original take on a played out concept and I loved the acting. Great acting all around except for some ham acting from a certain actor towards the end. Only a true talented director with a vision can take elements from a genre that your all too familiar with and totally blows your head with it. Korean director Byeong-Ki Ahn really came through with talent and true insight in a genre that's so easily ripped off...he shows new takes on slasher moments and gives the film a real edge that most post scream movies don't have. Now let's start off with the most important...the script. I really liked the script for this film. It was smart,original in it's take of the movie's plot and pretty great story telling. Right from the get go this film had me watching and I was never bored. I love how the film started one way then slowly started changing on me without me even noticing it. I loved how since this film is about that "J-horror" genre(but it's actually K-Horror because it's Korean) but slowly it becomes more complex and moves away from the J-horror movies we have all come to know. Smart lad this Byeong-Ki Ahn is...much talented. I loved the characters in this film. They were all wonderfully played by actors who looked young and had the chops to pull it off. And the girls,wow...I have never seen so many hot looking girls in one film. I mean,they were hot...I couldn't take my eyes off of them and they also knew how to act. Simply wonderful. I liked how this movie short of had that Scream type of vibe with the whole teen thing but I also liked how they didn't try to rip it off either. This movie is smarter than Scream I think, Scream was a fan boys fantasy...this film is just that...a film. They took something that everyone here in the states has ripped off to the point of death(Scream mainly) and did something smart by mixing it into the booming J-horror genre and making something totally cool and clever. I also liked how there were no "evil" people just misguided and human characters. The characters never did anything to make me go"oh I know why they did that...it was just so that the character to serve the story" In this movie it's the other way around...the characters are the story and the movie was about them and something they had done. No this isn't like the ripped off crap that was "I know what you did last summer"(which was ripped off from the flawed 80's flick "Prom Night". No, I know what you did last summer and Prom Night wish they could be as good as Nightmare. From the beginning we're never told what the characters did(something that Prom Night really messed up on by telling us too early and then trying to us care about those same characters who did something really bad) No, this movie allows us to know these people as characters and then they tell us what happened.Great show. Now for some of the beefs. The third act was kicking, I mean I loved it. Most other J-horror movies would have done the third act in the same way but this film doesn't and I loved them for that. But my only beef with that is the acting from the "bad guy" I mean come on...the dude spend most of the movie being calm and level headed and then at the end he goes all loco. Wow, how the hell that happen? Another beef is with the last pace of the film. First off let me say I loved fast pace, it really helped me get interested in this film and never allowed me to get bored. But at moments it seemed like it went a little to fast paced to the point where I didn't know what I was watching. I was left going"what? How that happen?" At times I found myself lost. But it's all good...the film had a few beefs but it still rocked hard. Now back to my favorite thing about the film...the directing. Man, Byeong-Ki Ahn kicked all kinds of tail with this bad boy. Man, I was really impressed with all the style and talent he showed without being all "look at me I'm so talented because I'm using all this style" No, homeboy handled his stuff good. He rocked the acting, he handled the drama, the unfolding story and the horror. Man,boy knows his stuff and brought so much to this cool flick. Great show.

Much more entertaining than expected

[slayrrr666 · 8/10 · 13 April 2009]

"Nightmare" is a much better than expected supernatural slasher with many good points.

**SPOILERS**

Returning home to Korea, Sun-ae, (Choi Jeong-yun) catches up with sister Hye-jin, (Kim Gyu-RI) about their old friends Jung-wook, (Yu Jun-Sang) Se-Hon, (Jun Jeong) Hyun-joon, (Yu Ji-tae) and Mi-ryeong, (Jo Hye-yeong) who she hasn't seen in awhile. Learning that she fears their deceased friend Kyung-ah, (Ha Ji-won) and thinks she has been following her, they all reveal similar stories about their experiences around her, and upon thinking back, not even a friendship with Eun-Jun, (Ha Ji-won) made them stop thinking that way. When it finally gets revealed that her ghost has been behind the series of strange events that have plagued them for the time-being and has taken to killing them off one-at-a-time, forcing them to find a way to stop the ghost's deadly rampage.

The Good News: There was a lot of good stuff to this one. One of the best features is the fact that the film gets much more violent than would be expected through some great kills that are more brutal than expected. There's a pencil stabbed into a head, a head rammed through a series of windows that eventually start to get embedded in the skull, a particularly brutal slit throat, being repeatedly struck in the face with a baseball bat, an impaling with a multi-pronged metal pole through the stomach and more, which is quite nice to see that it doesn't shy away from the usual blood-and-gore trappings of the genre. We also get more carnage here from the film's two back-story segments, both of which are incredible in their own right but also serve to add more gore. The first, which shows the brief-albeit-impressive exorcism of the natives comes complete with the tribal drumming and ceremonial rituals that make it exciting, and that it ends with a bang due to the crash-site showing the wounded and dismembered victims with the sole survivor, horribly bleeding themselves, walking out of the wreckage with an impressive visual, while the second-one, shot through a video-camera, manages to clarify all the questions up until then, winds it together with a great fight and an effective wrap-up that feels realistic and logical about the situation and manages to feel really good as well, making it a good winner. It even has a couple really nice action scenes as well, the most important being the incredibly fun rooftop brawl in the rain at the end, which is a lot of fun and has a lot of great moments throughout, who's-in-control changes constantly and it feels really well-done and effectively ends it with the proper result. The ghost, as usual, looks really good and has a lot going for it during it's moments, getting some really creepy moments out of the usual scenes and holding some key scenes together rather nicely. The last plus here is the film's best part, it's high quantity of ghost encounters present. There's a ton of them in here, nearly all of which are enjoyable or at the very least somewhat creepy. From the ghost floating at the bottom of the swimming pool with their hair drifting in the current to the hand rising from out of the video camera and the several chases through the school's hallway, the encounters here were really well-done and effectively made for a nice atmosphere. Even the two fantastic house scenes, where it appears during a raging thunderstorm and uses the shadows to sneak up on it's victim, or too where it only shows itself to one of them while others are there and don't see it coming after them, it's full of impressive scenes that work really well here. These are the film's good points.

The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot of problems with this one. One of the main flaws is the film's really bad scares-to-kills ration. The ghost is given a lot of screen-time in this, providing a lot of opportunities for some kills, but the fact there isn't as much compared to the scares is a little distressing. Granted, being around a lot shows off the power and fear requirements quite nicely, but it still would've been nice to be able to have the areas a little more even in terms of actually being on-screen to kill rather than to scare, great as those scenes are. The only other main area of problem here is the film's rather curious decision to use the first-half of the film as a flashback sequence that explains the whole relationship with everyone. This isn't all that well-exposed, coming across as something that could've been told effectively in a more subdued way that manages to get the same points across without taking as long to spell everything out as it does. That's the main problem with it, being that, since it decides to focus on the relationship quirks of the friends while telling a flashback, a point not revealed until the end of the sequence, before going into either scenes that the individual telling wouldn't have known about or into another flashback within, it just feels as though the entire set-up could've come off a little differently than what is shown, while still telling the same story and hitting the same points. These here are the film's flaws.

The Final Verdict: With a lot of good stuff and only a few minor flaws to it, there wasn't much really holding this one back in the genre. Give this one a shot if you're into the ghostly revenge genre or a huge of fan of Asian horror, while those who aren't really into these films should heed caution.

Rated UR/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity

Solid vengeful spirit movie

[vainblood · 9/10 · 8 July 2011]

Overall, this is a very interesting "slasher" with a pinch of ghost story thrown in. It has a good plot, a good-looking lead character and what I liked the most about it was the suspense that often lingered in the scenes, even if you often knew what was going to happen.

Yes, it has some flaws. Some of the actors didn't make a good performance, the chaotic chronology makes it confusing to watch and it doesn't really add anything new to the genre. But those flaws are easily overlooked and overshadowed by the heavy plot that will hold you in a steady grip to find out what lies behind it all. Clichés and confusion aside, the movie still delivers what it promised.

It doesn't have to be completely original to be a good movie, because it often comes down to individual taste and what kind of movies you are entertained by. How many episodes of CIS are original and brings something new to the genre? I would say, not that many. They are still entertaining in their own right. If you are the kind of person who is into classic Asian horror with vengeful spirits and a deep background story, then this is for you. But if you are a judgemental movie snob who has to watch something that adds cultural innovation to the screen, then you should probably stay away from this movie.