Warning: Do Not Play (2019) User Reviews

Not worth

[m-ramanan · 4/10 · 10 June 2021]

RATED 4/10 Language: Korean

Very average horror flick and lot of scenes are easily skippable... its kind of mixture of various horror movie scenes and highly predictable.... Its not scary and not entertaining one also...

I was excited to see the director of the Butcher back for his second film

[danteasdale458 · 6/10 · 13 June 2020]

Back in 2007, first time director Kim Jin-Won created an one of the most brutal films ever made. The Butcher was a snuff film entirely in first person. The two characters are strapped to chairs, giving helmets with cameras on them and brutally tortured in first person. The three men doing the torturing were filming their every move using handheld cameras.

This film was incredibly brutal and very real feeling. The director has not made another film since that. I was incredibly pumped to see that this director has made this new film for Shudder.

Unfortunately his new film isn't really great. They have some decent jump scares, great environments and the effects looked pretty good, however it has a lot of horror cliche's and the ending doesn't really do the film too much justice.

I think the film is worth a watch at least. I enjoyed it for what it was, I just wish it was better.

The Butcher was a better film. It was clever and unique for its time. Whilst it doesn't hold up too generously now a days, it still a cult classic.

Missed opportunity, becomes just decent as a result

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 13 September 2020]

Eager to continue her studies, a rookie film director becomes intrigued by reports of a cursed film rumored to be directed by a ghost and sets out to learn more about it, but the closer to the truth she gets the more she uncovers a dangerous entity coming for her and must try to solve the mystery safely.

Overall, this was a pretty solid effort. One of the strongest elements here is the folklore and backstory given to the particular film as there's a lot of detail here to make it fun. Though the concept of the cursed film driving people insane when they watch it is nothing new, the setup featured here of the individual tormented to live out the rest of his life as a paranoid, deranged lunatic for filming and releasing what he did which starts the spread of the rumors involving the film and its legacy afterward. That ties nicely into the other solid positive with the film's supernatural elements. The opening sequence of the figure stalking a character through a darkened car-park using a cellphone camera for light is a chilling and pretty creepy opening, while the encounter with the frantic former director in his house is a nice segment. The changing lights, crazed behavior and frantic attacks to get at her all set the stage for the final half where the return to the abandoned, fire-ravaged theater which features plenty of tactics from recreations of the original incidents to her encounters with the ghost that has some solid action, giving this one a lot to like. There are some issues to be had with this one. The biggest letdown is the series of investigations that are taking place in the first half where the pace is so dragged out and slow to get going that there are several start-and-stop plot-points added to this one. The meetup with the various film-students who spill the urban legend about the movie to her, the different instructors at the film-centers she talks with to learn the truth about the movie or the searches around the university grounds trying to find it which are all necessary to understand what's going on yet just don't have the urgency needed to help this one out. The other problem here is with the seemingly cursed movie that's supposed to drive her insane yet that barely materializes. Very rarely does anything in here make sense, from how the psychological strain of attempting to find out how anything worked on the original shoot which causes her to be tormented by the forces who worked on it to the sudden introduction of morality into the story and all the background characters from the filming being involved, this one is confusing and quite chaotic to make out what's going on. Coupled with some cheap make-up effects from time-to-time, these are where the film stumbles.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

You should listen to the Title

[grimreysarath · 1/10 · 24 November 2021]

Just obey the title and Do not play this, that'll be the most appropriate decision and justice to your 'time' The plot itself is pathetic. The so called scariest movie made in the movie is totally a wreck. I genuinely doubt a single person got scared from this movie or the movies inside the movie.

Warning do not play

[the-viper-90572 · 7/10 · 16 October 2020]

It really enjoyable to watch and scary in the same time

Warning :Do not waste your time

[Misss25 · 1/10 · 22 April 2021]

I pick this movie up for Seo Ji but it was awful decision. Seo ji did a great job but story is total trash. I just wasted my 1.30 hours. So,not even watch this for Seo ji, story doesn't do justice to her.

Development Hell.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 17 June 2020]

After spending the night sorting out problems with my laptop,I was in the mood to end the day with a swift viewing. Finding the latest Shudder original to have a runtime of under 90 minutes,I pressed play.

View on the film:

Returning to the cinema for the first time since 2009's The Black Line, writer/director Kim Jin-won is joined by cinematographer Young-soo Yoon, and tears the seats out of the screening room for a unsettling, stylised meta-Horror, unlocking the missing film with infer red saturation colour dipped over the ghostly awakenings from the reels,as if they were being processed in a lab.

Whilst leaning too far in the final major set-piece on overlapping dissolves, which takes away from the eerie state of the dead silent cinema,and also obscures Mi-Jung (played by a great Ye-ji Seo ,who brings out Mi-Jung burning curiosity and scrappy edge to get the movie) finally glimpsing the film, Jin-won displays a thrilling inventiveness in the presentation of the lost film, which Jin-Won plays with jagged camera shots going behind the scenes of the horror seen in the cheap seats.

Taking one of the main criticisms of the Found Footage genre, (this is not a Found Footage movie) of how the lost footage got edited, and cleverly reeling the explanation in as a method to give background to the ghost, the screenplay by Jin-Won taps into the film fanatic excitement from finding a elusive title, via driving a increasingly creepy Horror tension on Mi-Jung being away of the curse placed on the film,but unable to turn away from a viewing.

Bringing the past and present together at a cinema screening which stays messy over how it occurred, Jin-Won gives Mi-Jung the starring meta-Horror role of bringing the horrors of a troubled production out from behind the camera,and onto the blood-splattered screen,as Mi-Jung presses play.

Warning: Do not watch

[s3276169 · 2/10 · 17 June 2020]

Probably one of the most irritating films I've seen in a very long time. Generally South Korean film is excellent but this one is, in my view, a real stinker.

"Warning: Do Not Play" starts of well enough and looks promising but then, for totally unfathomable reasons, heads off on an addled monsterous mystery tour. It took all my will power to see this thing through to its weak tea conclusion.

Its a shame too as the core premise is worthwhile, acting solid and cinamatics polished.

2/10.

Disappointing

[wildautumngoose · 3/10 · 15 June 2020]

John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns did it better. Watch that instead if you can find it.

Very good horror film

[alesaenz-48003 · 9/10 · 26 February 2021]

The movie has some clear influences from films like "Tesis" (Spain), "The Ring" (Japan), "The Grudge" (Japan) along with making reference to others like "The Exorcist" & "The Blair Witch Project". It's a griping concept with some cool twists. I enjoyed the narrative having scare jumps. My only disapointment is with the ending (don't worry I won't spoil) since the story has everything to finish with a bang but instead is too quiet and mild closure. Still I'm glad of having the chance of watching it.

I didn't like this movie, It was really boring

[Neptune165 · 2/10 · 30 November 2021]

It was so dark i can barely see what they're doing. Well this movie was a total waste of time. The plot isn't really understandable. It's all over the place and could've been much better if it was written in a different way. I'm sorry, but this movie was complete and utter garbage. It's hard to sit through a movie in which you abhor the protagonist. I found myself actively rooting for her to die.

Just Didn't Do Anything For Me

[Foutainoflife · 3/10 · 27 May 2023]

I love horror and look for it in many places and through that journey, I've come across a range of films that fall between being a decent watch and total garbage. This falls somewhere between somewhat passable and garbage. The story itself has potential but the execution, annoying characters and lack of visibility absolutely ruin it.

The story is about a woman who's trying to come up with a good horror script and hears about a blacklisted graduate film rumored to be both terrifying and made by a ghost. She becomes annoyingly obsessed with finding the film, watching it and using it to come up with something of her own.

The main character's annoying. She's moody, self-involved and even more fueled with curiosity when warned to stay away from the film. She just wasn't fun to watch.

The sets were grungy and not unexpected for a horror film but they lacked inspiration and there were so many scenes that were just total darkness. Seriously, you couldn't see anything that was happening. This style of filming can be used in ways that are advantageous for horror but it can also ruin a horror movie if the viewer has no clue what they are supposed to be afraid of.

I dunno. I was just disappointed. I was expecting more than I got and even found myself losing interest from time to time. I'm sure that some folks might enjoy it but it just didn't work for me.

It has moments, but those moments are not enough.

[s-stetsko · 4/10 · 5 July 2020]

I though about making my header comment... ''Warning... do NOT play'', but that was both low hanging fruit and not completely honest. This movie is not a complete waste of time, and some people might even like it more than I did-- if those people are looking for a rather formulaic Korean horror that tries really hard, but ultimately superficially, to be surprising and gripping. It is competently filmed in its own right, and you can tell that some experience was behind the making of the film, but...

The truth is the premise of a ''lost'', cursed creative product lurking to be rediscovered by an ambitious young creative was uninspired, the plot development is not nearly so innovative as alluded to (and the end was rather predictable to me), the mixing of found footage and professional was disappointingly cliched, and most glaringly, the characters were at best, stock. The mad director, the insatiably curious (and even unsympathetically unethical) young new writer looking to overcome their writer's block, the impatient producer, the earnest supporters who will likely be fodder... etc. The movie has a few honestly creepy moments, but those moments are themselves cliche, albeit fairly well done, and the addition of a few creepy scenes can not overcome the overall dullness of the movie, or the badly written characters and overacting which so many Korean directors seem to feel makes it more gripping.

At least it wasn't needlessly filled with screaming... lot's of ragged hyperventilating, but not too many screams, so that is something.

Meh... annoying characters.

[sergedenas · 4/10 · 30 December 2020]

Watch this if you want to see a fragile "protagonist" crying, flailing and waving some sort of razor around for 25+ mins.

A waste of time!

[jp_91 · 1/10 · 9 March 2021]

"Amjeon" is an awful horror film, a weak script without logic, a bad music score and a cheap cinematography, the performances are just fine. The film is bored, not the scariest film ever made as the director wanted us to believe, even there is a mention about "The Exorcist", but "Amjeon" is nothing compared. The film is slow and totally bad!

Confused

[swaybayda · 10/10 · 22 February 2021]

How am i supposed to play the video i feel so dumn right now is it just me?

Bad execution

[isaacochoterena · 3/10 · 15 March 2022]

This movie has a promising premise, but everything falls apart bit by bit.

At the beginning, this film creates a good atmosphere of terror by scaring us, but that falls off throughout the film, little by little the story becomes boring and slow, ruining the promising premise. This premise is very interesting, but its poor execution means that the idea is wasted and the film is not worth watching, despite the fact that the story is related to the cinema. This film reflects the ambition that we have as human beings towards our profession and that we can do the unimaginable to achieve our goal, it also works as a criticism of film directors who, in some cases, are very demanding with their collaborators by demanding more than the expected. The film has very bad visual effects, everything looks very fake and visual credibility is lost, although the photography can be interesting and decent.

In this film, many things are not fully developed, as well as it fails to give us a good horror story despite the good premise and the promising idea that is not exploited correctly.

Well, the title actually tells you what not to do...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 22 May 2023]

I sat down to watch the 2019 South Korean horror movie "Amjeon" (aka "Warning Do Not Play") here in 2023, without ever having heard about it. But it being an Asian horror movie that I hadn't already seen was more than sufficient to make me sit down and watch it.

The movie was off to a terrible start, as everything was shot in near-darkness. Right, well that is not something that interests me, especially not when it is so dark that you can't even see what is going on. But once past the intro sequence to the movie, it becomes a properly lit movie. However, the storyline was just utter rubbish, and if you've seen "Ringu", then don't bother with this movie, because it is a watered-down, slightly altered knock-off of that concept.

It didn't help the movie one bit that the narrative was slow paced to the point of being downright dull. And the fact that nothing interesting happened throughout the course of the movie didn't exactly do much either.

Writer and director Kim Jin-won delivered a swing and a miss of a movie. I found absolutely nothing worthwhile watching in the movie, and I didn't even finish the movie, because it was that boring and unappealing. And believe me when I say that I am never returning to attempt finish watching "Amjeon".

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but the actors and actresses literally had nothing to work with in terms of script, characters or dialogue.

My rating of "Amjeon" lands on a two out of ten stars, and I can honestly recommend that you take heed of the warning that also is the title of the movie; Warning: Do Not Play.