The Black Magic starts as soon to be married Andrew (Daniel Lennox) & his two best friends Craig (Brian Bianchni) & David (Guy Bracca) are enjoying a holiday in Bangkok in Thailand, however the trip turns to tragedy & the three friends arrive back back home in the States looking to get on with their respective lives. Unfortunately all three begin to suffer various problems, from being fired to getting stabbed to having terrifying nightmares as an evil force out for revenge starts to ruin their lives & ultimately tries to take them...
This American, Thai & Indonesian co-production was co-written & directed by Marc-Ivan O'Gorman & one has to say it's unusual to find a horror flick on the IMDb that doesn't have at least ten comments, in fact it's clear that horror is easily the most commented upon genre on the IMDb & I would guess that The Blck Magic is therefore a pretty obscure film & I have have to say that it pretty much deserves to be obscure & hopefully for the general public it will stay that way. The script by O'Gorman & producer Asun Mawardi takes itself very seriously & is probably best described as a supernatural horror thriller in the style of recent Japanese horror like Ringu (1998) & Ju-On: The Grudge (2003) with ghostly Asian women & wronged spirits out for some sort of revenge. Unfortunately The Black magic feels very much like an American attempt at recreating the success of these Japanese horror films & as such sticks a load of annoying American teens as the stars, sets some of it in Bangkok while the rest in America & pretty much uses all the clichés you know & are throughly bored of. From possession to righting a wrong before a ghost can rest in peace it's all here just without any of the scares or entertainment you would hope for. It's really boring & very slow, it's extremely predictable & there isn't even an explanation as to why Sita comes back from the dead.
Director O'Gorman does alright & at least the film looks competent throughout although there's zero scares, there's no style & no atmosphere. The shots of Bangkok look like they came from a holiday program or travelogue & are surprisingly dull & flat as is the whole film really. According to the MPAA section on the IMDb homepage for The Black Magic this was rated 'R' for strong violence, language, some sexuality & drug use, well it's go the language & drug use but there's no nudity & as for strong violence I didn't see any. A chicken has it's head cut off in a sacrifice, someone is stabbed in the stomach & someone is repeatedly stabbed in the throat at the end otherwise there's nothing here to get excited about. There's a touch of cheap looking CGI computer effects work as well.
Technically the film is reasonably well made & better than a lot of low budget horror crap, unfortunately the story & film still suck though. The acting is OK, nothing brilliant but nothing too bad.
The Black Magic is a poor attempt at a Japanese styled supernatural horror thriller which is a genre I don't like anyway so this was never likely to impress me, give this a miss & watch the American remake of The Ring (2002) instead as it's much, much better.
This American, Thai & Indonesian co-production was co-written & directed by Marc-Ivan O'Gorman & one has to say it's unusual to find a horror flick on the IMDb that doesn't have at least ten comments, in fact it's clear that horror is easily the most commented upon genre on the IMDb & I would guess that The Blck Magic is therefore a pretty obscure film & I have have to say that it pretty much deserves to be obscure & hopefully for the general public it will stay that way. The script by O'Gorman & producer Asun Mawardi takes itself very seriously & is probably best described as a supernatural horror thriller in the style of recent Japanese horror like Ringu (1998) & Ju-On: The Grudge (2003) with ghostly Asian women & wronged spirits out for some sort of revenge. Unfortunately The Black magic feels very much like an American attempt at recreating the success of these Japanese horror films & as such sticks a load of annoying American teens as the stars, sets some of it in Bangkok while the rest in America & pretty much uses all the clichés you know & are throughly bored of. From possession to righting a wrong before a ghost can rest in peace it's all here just without any of the scares or entertainment you would hope for. It's really boring & very slow, it's extremely predictable & there isn't even an explanation as to why Sita comes back from the dead.
Director O'Gorman does alright & at least the film looks competent throughout although there's zero scares, there's no style & no atmosphere. The shots of Bangkok look like they came from a holiday program or travelogue & are surprisingly dull & flat as is the whole film really. According to the MPAA section on the IMDb homepage for The Black Magic this was rated 'R' for strong violence, language, some sexuality & drug use, well it's go the language & drug use but there's no nudity & as for strong violence I didn't see any. A chicken has it's head cut off in a sacrifice, someone is stabbed in the stomach & someone is repeatedly stabbed in the throat at the end otherwise there's nothing here to get excited about. There's a touch of cheap looking CGI computer effects work as well.
Technically the film is reasonably well made & better than a lot of low budget horror crap, unfortunately the story & film still suck though. The acting is OK, nothing brilliant but nothing too bad.
The Black Magic is a poor attempt at a Japanese styled supernatural horror thriller which is a genre I don't like anyway so this was never likely to impress me, give this a miss & watch the American remake of The Ring (2002) instead as it's much, much better.