Art of the Devil II – Review

I’ve never watched a trilogy back to back, so interesting enough after watching Art of the Devil II I had an overwhelming sensation wash over me. I had to ask myself, was Art of the Devil 2 scary? Yes. Was it enough gore to satisfy fans of Hollywood-type slasher movies, and peppered with generous helpings of ghostly apparitions and other supernatural elements? Yes. This successful sequel follows a female teacher of a high school who is caught on tape by her stepson and his friends having an affair with the gym teacher. The gym teacher confronts the group of friends, threatens them with a gun, and sexually molests several of them. In revenge, they seek the help of a shaman to cast a very nasty spell on the gym teacher, resulting in his very gory death involving some very nasty fish-hooks.

There’s nothing in this film that you need to have seen from the first, which is far better. The Ronin Team, which consists of seven directors, has done a good job piecing this film together. As horrific as this movie might been there are some slow areas surrounding this film for the reason for understanding and knowing the characters. As my good film buddy Will over at The Film Reel can confess, besides Shutter, this is probabaly the second or third best horror movie out of Thailand. It’s hardly the most original of plots but it’s a well-worn formula that works effectively enough. After all, how much plot do you expect from a horror movie?

The movie itself throws countless loops in your face that, at times, confused the crap out of me. The storyline is hardly dynamic and often riddled with cliches. So, why do I reccommend it so highly? Well with so many directors involved it is a monstrous feat that they were dead on with the pacing. Pacing was spot-on, scares came fast and furious, and there was no shortage of cleverness on their part. After so many Asian ghost stories it’s refreshing to see a slightly different approach to the genre.

Luckily for me and anyone else who watches the movie, when the horror kicks in it goes all out. The last half of the movie is plain twisted, putting Hostel to shame. Then there is the story before, like why they did the curse, that was actually pretty interesting and somewhat disturbing-ish at points, which was good. I’m trying to be as spoiler free as possible because I don’t want to give too much away. However I do highly recommend seeing Art of the Devil 2, should you be able to get your hands on it. Of course, the ending doesn’t matter too much for the movie. I’d say that for what it wanted to do, Art of the Devil 2 was able to reach their goal nicely. Stay tuned tomorrow for my review of Part III as we continue horror week!