Directed by Somching Srisupap
Starring Ananda Everingham
Artid Ryu
A decent supernatural slasher film from Thailand, "Fear Faith Revenge" is about boys at an authoritarian religious academy, where seniors violently bully underclassmen. The new students learn about a long-since-dead alum who was rumored to have committed suicide. They also learn that at the time of the ex-student's death, a number of other boys from the academy disappeared. They use a Ouija board to contact the spirit of a long-since deceased alum. They naturally contact the wrong kind of spirit, however, and it isn't long before students are being offed one by one, slasher style, by some mysterious killer.
The first half hour of the film is unbearably sentimental and boring and will probably have you wondering what the hell you're doing watching it. But once the boys find the Ouija Board, things start seriously picking up. The story develops into a mystery that's far superior to many of the slasher films being cranked out in the U.S. at the turn of the century, most notably the "Urban Legend" movies.
Srisupap directs with a little bit too much of a rock-video-esque style for my tastes. There are way too many annoying fast edits. But the film does have a fast pace and ultimately the mystery holds the whole picture together. Obviously the movie is inspired by slick U.S. thrillers of the 1990s, most notably the "Scream" franchise. But, as I mentioned above, it's way better than most modern U.S. slasher films.
The picture actually deals with a subject that would be very much on the minds of Americans a year after this film's release: school shootings. In fact, once you see it, you may think it's a little uncanny that a movie like this was released a year before Littleton.
A huge hit in Thailand, the film likely won't put a dent in the international horror scene because, despite the best of intentions, it isn't as extreme as other Asian fear films, such as "The Untold Story," "Ebola Syndrome," "Entrails of a Virgin," etc. Still, if you run into it at your local Thai DVD retailer, you may want to rent a copy.
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-- Review by Lucius Gore
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