Seventh Moon DVD Review
Seventh Moon DVD Review
Not Smart.
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Director Eduardo Sanchez must have a really strong stomach. Or maybe he's the heir to the Dramamine fortune. I don't know, but I really wish he'd tone it down on the shaky cam in his movies. We've seen that already. Time to move on.
Sanchez is the one we can all thank for beginning what's become more than just a trend: in case you don't recognize his name, he is the director of 1999's The Blair Witch Project. (Though I am sure co-conspirator Daniel Myrick shares some of the blame, I'll refrain from speaking ill of him until I review The Objective.) Anyway, it's not just the vomit-inducing visuals that rankle me, it's the fact Sanchez's movies just aren't very good. I never did "get" The Blair Witch Project, I didn't think the sequel was much better, and I also didn't care for his latest film before Seventh Moon, which is called Altered.
I must confess, I am also predisposed to not liking Seventh Moon for its subject matter. I'm really over the whole "American honeymooners go to Asia and meet the local ghosts" storyline. It's my bias, maybe it's not yours. In this case, it's a typically tearstained Amy Smart as the bride, and her Westernized Chinese husband, Yul (Tim Chiou), who we can barely see as they jiggle and wiggle in the frame and yell a lot.
What happens is, they are riding along at night in the back of a gypsy cab listening to frightening folktales as told by their local guide, Ping (Dennis Chan). Before you can say "Boo!" everyone's out of the car and running for their lives, lost in a small, isolated farming village peopled by creatures who look like they wandered off the set of The Descent.
Supposedly these white, pasty ghouls are the manifestations of the dead who are free to roam among the living every seventh full moon. The moon must be on energy-saving low wattage in Hong Kong because there are many too-dark scenes… and when you can make something out it's usually smeared by motion-blur or off-the-Richter quaking.
Chasing, hiding, crying, and shouting pretty much make up the execution and dialogue of this messy, poorly made film. Those actions and reactions are common to many horror movies, but in the case of Seventh Moon there is no plotting, suspense or anything remotely smart or inventive to fill the gaps. I will say the acting is decent, considering the constraints of character, but I just can't think of anything to recommend it.
DVD Features include:
- Commentary
- Featurette: Ghosts of Hong Kong)
- Featurette: The Pale Figures
- Featurette: Mysteries of the Seventh Lunar Moon
- Trailers, Web link and Promos
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson