Jeremy's Reviews Blog

Friday, July 13, 2007

Silk (DVD Review)

Silk, or Guisi as the original Chinese title is, is a ghost story. Asian ghost movies have gotten rather trite, but this is pretty unique. It's got both more of a science fiction aspect to it, and more of a personal story, but to a certain extent, still follows the horror and investication angle common in movies made famous in The Ring.

A group of scientists researching anti-gravity are doing so by researching ghosts. Since ghosts don't really obey it. Finally the team finds a ghost to observe, but they need help trying to find who the ghost is (it's of a young boy). So they get a cop who can read lips to help them. The research team has had its share of troubles, especially the leader of it. The cop, too, is troubled, by a mother dying of ALS (aka Lou Gehrigs Diseases, I think).

That's pretty much the set up - I can't really go into details about the plot without spoiling things, but I found it quite original and refreshing. Really nice direction, too. Some really nice cinematopgraphy. Hurt somewhat by a really bad CG car crash which reduces some of the tension building up because the effects were just so bad.

Also interesting use of if not technobabble, I guess Michael Crichton style science. These things called Menger Sponges are used to see and trap the ghosts. They actually exist, but only as mathmatical models, really.

A-

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