Red Eye

Let's recap: We've had haunted schools, red shoes, steps, wigs, musical instruments and anything that is described as an inanimate object must be used! This time however, we are taken for a ride on the local haunted ghost train - with a crazy set of coincidences nearly as bad as the infamous Bunshinsaba!

Age Rating: 15+
Company: HK Bootleg
Genre: Korean Horror
Running Time: Approx 110 mins
Region: 3



Our main heroine named Sun-Mi and rule numero uno in my cliche list takes on her new job as a trolley dolly - which leads to ultimately disasterous consequences!
A midnight train that traveled onroute from Seoul to Yeosu was involved in a serious train crash 17 years beforehand. Naturally, it's the last ever voyage of this particular train and on the anniversary of the crash too! Sun-Mi makes sure she gets on board, by swapping shifts with her co-worker even though it's her birthday as well. We find out that she isn't the only one with a reason to get on the doomed train. A cast of cliches appear and take their seats for this ride! These include: the crazy kleptomaniac chix, a newly married couple, a scholar, chav army guys, a group of ghost hunters and an incestious brother and sister looking for a death wish!



Sun-Mi nervously starts her job and pushes the trolley to serve the customers onboard the train with refreshments. Some treat her nicely, while others like the crazy chix try and make it torture. The conductor tries his best to make her feel comfortable ie. hitting on the poor girl and even goes as far as joking about the train being haunted! You should never joke about something that is true ;)
Weird things start to happen after Sun-Mi encounters a strange little boy on her rounds who is drawing 'scary pictures'. It is just as laughable as the US version of Ring's 'scary pictures'. His skilled drawings are of the people who was on board the 1988 train crash and Sun-Mi freaks out..just a little! The group of ghost hunters meanwhile, have one member in particular who can feel an eerie presence as an old rustbucket carriage joins up to the train. Then it all starts to go wrong..



The train flickers from the present and to the past as Sun-Mi tries to contemplate what is actually happening. The concidences start spilling out as we find out Sun-Mi's father was onboard the fated 1988 train and got killed. Not only that - but the present conductor's girlfriend was the stewardess who died then as well. It seems everyone has connections! One by one, the passengers start dropping like flies and even my beloved psychic girl bites the dust!
By this point, rules 2 and 3 apply! Which isn't very surprising as the plot is fairly predictable in all senses! Let's just say it isn't a very happy ending and no one is immune to this..
Red Eye is a very enjoyable film to watch despite hitting the first three cliches on my list. Sun-Mi is a character that you grow to feel attached to, although I feel her past story was not in depth enough (Ok I know it's a horror film!) The rest of the misfits blend in well to provide a bit of colour and flesh out the story ever so slighty. The usage of special effects was well done on the whole and I loved the very cinematic angles. You can tell that this has a high budget!



So what makes this one-way train wreck better than the average South Korean horror? The story might be simple but holds together well and it doesn't ruin itself in the last moments by that BIG TWIST. The big twist isn't actually stuningly huge or surprising for a change! I liked most of the characters and it can get brutally violent towards the main protaganist at times. Is that a plus? Why yes! It's all part of the master plan - which the ending leaves ambigious yet obvious. Certainly surprsing that the films with the least expectations turn out to be better than most in the genre!

Overall: 8/10

Shame that rule number 4 didn't apply!