Bloody Beach

This was the first Korean movie I saw, so I guess it could be a bit biased :) A few teens who met on a chat room have decided to rent a beach house for the summer, for a summer of love, booze... and fear. As one of them is not who they say they are... who is Sandmanz? and why is he hell bent on seeing this nice people suffer? You'll have to watch it to find out :p

Some really good action sequences raise this movie above the average slasher tosh that is being made at the moment, although it suffers from some rusty acting... but hey, it's a horror movie :)

In the spirit of the new-age slasher, this Korean flick is telling about a bunch of young internet chatter decide to make an off-line meeting in a beautiful beach. Little does they know a banned ex-member of the group, called Sandmanz, start to kill them one by one. The result is `Bloody Beach', a gore-fest.

Bloody Beach a.k.a. Haebyeoneuro Gada is the Korean attempt to make a decent slasher movie. The result is seemed quite well. Although Bloody Beach comes in the post-Scream era but the director seem very influence by the 80's slasher flick. There's many reference from that era and that makes Bloody Beach as a fine combination of 90's and 80' flick. Actually, there's nothing new here and there's routine and cliché, and the plot holes is quite abundance, but since this is a splatter gem, we can't complaint. As a Korean movie, Bloody Beach also has a bit different approaching in the story line rather than the American counterpart. The dramatic tense is build well. However I must warn you, because the pace is slow-moving, especially in the first half. But after the second killing, the pace move tolerable and able to build the fright rhythms it needs. The gores are somewhat strong and still in the cheesy concept but it nicely blend and make me do not much complaint of it. If you like a slasher with different ambience, you should check this. An Asian splatter is definitely rare to find, especially the nice one.

7/10

A group of internet pen-pals decide to throw away the cloak of anonymity and meet up at the local beach and adjoining campsite for a weekend of fun. But what begins as harmless pranks and a little bit of lovin' soon escalates into complete chaos when a maniacal killer starts to pick off the helpless teenagers in a typically gruesome fashion. Now it's up to the survivors to work out who it could be - including the very real possibility that one of them could be hiding an extremely disturbing secret.

It's a little hard to believe nowadays but the premise behind FRIDAY THE 13TH was once an original idea. The thought of another movie depicting horny and stupid teenagers being picked off by a psychopath with some trivial grudge against them - or their employers/predecessors/hamsters etc - makes me cringe but the prospect of seeing how the Koreans, whose film industry I have nothing but the utmost respect for, tackled this infamous genre was an opportunity too good to pass up. And I'm glad I decided to splash out the £7.25 to DDDHouse for the privilige! "Bloody Beach" starts in dubious fashion, with a teenage girl being stabbed to death while doing the business on a train toilet, but soon picks up when the internet pen-pals meet up at their lakeside resort.

"Bloody Beach" isn't trying to compete on the same level as "Battle Royale" or "Ringu"; it's a fun slasher designed to emulate the early 1980s American slashers and for a large part of the time it succeeds admirably. The deaths are inventive, the dialogue is riddled with witty one-liners, the cast are wholly believable and the director knows how to generate a decent jolt or two. Plot holes are evident towards the end of the movie but we get a satisfying final reel with a stonking conclusion and a few totally unexpected twists and turns. "Deadly Camp" may have (wrongly) claimed the title in 1999 but "Bloody Beach" actually deserves it: this is FRIDAY THE 13TH - Asian style! Recommended - ***.5 / *****

I've already seen a lot of HK movies so I guessed that this one should be a gorefest. Well, it isn't. it isn't a HK, it came from Korea so it's less gore and bloody. But the storyline is okay. The movie starts pretty well with the action taking place in a train. You are immediately bound to the story. And then the credits appear and the movie slows down. You start to know the characters but it takes a bit too long. Around 40 minutes nothing happens except talking, having fun on the beach and talking again. The second part of the movie is pretty well. It starts going, with the killing of the bunch. It's a typical remake of those good old eighties slashers. Point of view, first person, the bad guy, the heroin...you get it. You will think you could guess who is doing the killings, well guess it. I said before that the killings aren't that gory. One scene will remember you of the cut out scene of The Burning. The blood flows but it's all being cut too early. Anyway, it still is a good movie especially when you think it was made in Korea. It also has a love story in it getting his point at the end of the movie and make you think about internet and chatrooms. Normally you have to order it in Korea to have it uncut, no probs , English subs are included and it's region free.

When a group of Internet friends gather at the beach their fun is quickly ruined when a vacation turns into a murderous rampage. Although the plot is simple, and although much of the occurrences throughout the film are, at times, predictable, the movie is very well executed.

The cinematography of Bloody Beach (Haebyeoneuro Gada) was very impressive and an unexpected surprise. Unique camera angles were often employed and the perspectives from which it was filmed were also very eye-catching. This made up for some of the unoriginality of the script. It was entertaining enough to keep one's attention, though not enough to highly recommend. Many of the bloody action sequences keep you enthralled as well as the occasional plot twisting and misleading. However, in the end, it is not enough to make the film highly recommendable or distinguished.