Director: Eduardo Sánchez
Writers: Jamie Nash, Eduardo Sánchez
Stars: Amy Smart, Dennis Chan, Tim Chiou
Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
Link:
“On the full moon of the seventh lunar month, the gates of Hell open and the spirits of the dead are free to roam among the living.” — Chinese myth
Synopsis
Credits roll as Melissa and Yul celebrate their honeymoon in China by visiting various shops and things around town. She’s American, and he’s Chinese. They give Mr. Ping, their guide for the trip, an expensive bottle of wine and a t-shirt. Melissa asks Ping if people really believe in the hungry ghost stories. He drives them to an old farmhouse, saying he’s lost, but we can see that he intended to come here.
Ping abandons them in the dark, and after an hour or so, they go off looking for him. The farm seems to be abandoned and padlocked, but there are healthy animals in the cages. They hear voices and run back to the car, which they find covered in blood. They start the car and drive off; at least Ping left them the keys. Yul explains that the animals outside were left as offerings for the dead. The chanting was an invitation. They listen to a creepy guy on the car radio and then run off the road to avoid hitting a strange naked man crossing the road.
This couple argues a lot for newlyweds, at least until they hit another guy in the road and then stop for him. They throw the man in the back seat just as the car is attacked by demons. They back way down the road until the run off the road and get stuck. The pair abandons the car and head cross-country. They hear the demons attacking the abandoned car behind them.
Melissa and Yul find a barn and hide inside. Yul explains that they need to find something alive and place it outside as a sacrifice; something for them to kill. The three fight over who is going to be the sacrifice. Four or five of the creatures storm in, and things suddenly get quiet. The wounded man freaks out and runs away, with all the demons following him.
The run through the fields and get into a car. It’s hard to tell if this is the car they started in because it’s so dark. It is the same car, and they watch the monsters tear the third man apart on the hood. The manage to run away again, and this time, they barricade themselves in a large crypt in a cemetery. They hear a voice calling to them, and they leave the crypt to walk to a huge candle-lit house out in the woods.
Inside the house are numerous people who don’t speak a word. The voice says, “You’ll be safe here.” The people there peel off Melissa and Yul’s clothes and watch them have sex for some unspoken reason. Suddenly, the spell is broken, and they see the monsters instead of the people; somehow, they are tied up now. The monsters grab Yul and take him away. It’s too dark to tell if they killed him or not.
Melissa unties herself and goes back into the house with the candles. She takes off the clothes the monsters dressed her in and puts her original outfit back on. How did she change clothes the first time?
Mr. Ping reappears and explains that Yul made a great sacrifice. He explains how “they” came and took one of their people every year, so they started bringing in others for them to take away. Ping explains that they took him to a place to prepare him for his final journey, and Yul will be one of them before Moon fall. She insists on following him, but Ping says they will kill her, but all she has to do is follow the candle-path.
She follows the path into a cave full of water and her light goes out. This makes it even darker. The light comes back on, and she wanders around some more, walking between hundreds of the creatures in a trance. She finds Yul, who is waiting to die; he’s lost too much blood. He tells her to run away before they all wake up. She turns to leave, and runs away with the monsters right on her tail. She runs, and they follow, and then the moon sets. They all turn to dust and she gets away.
Commentary
It’s very dark outside. It was hard to tell who was who sometimes, and I even asked Kevin at one point where the Chinese woman came from (there wasn’t a Chinese woman). The arguing between the newlyweds is annoying and is only there to distract us from how little is actually happening.
The creature design is good. Basically, they are pale, white, naked, hairless people that don’t speak, but are otherwise relentless.
I did not enjoy this. The arguing in the beginning was really annoying and obnoxious. For newlyweds, these two were doomed from the start. There’s a lot of running around in the dark, and too many easy escapes. The “vision” or whatever it was in the sexy house made no sense. Then there was an incredibly long walk through the tunnels in the dark before anything happened. Finally, it’s all over pretty suddenly.
There were definitely some creepy visuals here, and good makeup, but there’s almost no story. A couple is terrorized by some demons in China. The end.