The Ghost Station

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by this little thriller. No, it's not great and the quality of the acting leaves much to be desired, but the story is quite intriguing for a while. "Na-yeong" ((Bo-ra Kim) is an aspiring journalist who receives a curious tip from her friend at a nearby train station. "U-won" ((Jae Hyun Kim) is convinced that the body of a child that was found between the tracks died in very mysterious circumstances. Despite the obvious reservations of her boss, she talks to the child's family and discovers that the the site of the station might have many old and horrific secrets to keep. The two friends decide to delve into that past and reveal those secrets - regardless of those whom it may effect! It's quite a quickly paced little drama this that really could have been doing with a little better, stronger, casting. The visual and audio effects are adequate and the story is solid in a creepy sort of fashion providing a few twists and turns to a plot that easily puts this in the range of the average Blumhouse horror-lite offering. You almost certainly won't remember it after you've seen it, but it isn't terrible by any means.

I had never heard about this 2022 South Korean horror mystery titled "Ogsuyeog Gwisin" (aka "The Ghost Station") prior to getting the chance to sit down and watch it here in 2023. And with my love of both the Asian cinema and horror cinema, of course it was a given that I had to watch this movie from director Yong-Ki Jeong. However, my expectations and thrills for a possibly interesting horror movie were shot down not far into the movie. Writers Yong-ki Jeong and Soyoung Lee managed to put together a rather confusing heap of a dumpsterfire disguised as a horror movie. Yeah, the movie made very little sense and it was quite a struggle to sit through it. In fact, I gave up on the ordeal with just 30 minutes left to watch. But I have to admit that by then I was ready to claw my eyes out. "Ogsuyeog Gwisin" was a swing and a miss, and for a South Korean horror movie it was sort of a farce. I assume because it was based on some Japanese material from Kôji Shiraishi and Hiroshi Takahashi, and the translation between the two cultures didn't really pan out all that well. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Ogsuyeog Gwisin", but I have to admit that my interest in the narrative was so vague and gradually dissipating more and more with each passing minute the narrative trotted on. So I wasn't really impressed with what I saw, but I suppose that the acting performances were adequate, because none of them stood out as being amateurish or bad actually. There were a couple of attempts at cheap jumpscares throughout the course of the 80 minutes that the ordeal lasted for. Not successful jumpscared, mind you, but at least director Yong-Ki Jeong tried. If you enjoy South Korean horror movies, you might want to consider giving "Ogsuyeog Gwisin" a wide berth. Trust me, it is not worth the time, money or effort. My rating of "Ogsuyeog Gwisin" lands on a generous three out of ten stars, and that is mostly because of the production value of the movie and the cinematography.

The plot, the horror, the soundtracks, the jump scares, the acting - everything in the quality of the movie is absolutely horrible. Even if everything was not absolutely horrible, there's still nothing good about this movie. This movie also looks like a super low-tier movie; you can feel it from the first scene of the movie. Goddamn. But above all, the most absolutely terrible aspect is the jump scares. Like, goddamn. I'd understand if the other factors were terrible because of their budget or something. But the jump scare factor is the worst. There isn't a single creative or original idea in this movie. Even if you can't find an idea on how to be creative with a jump scare, at least try to add some twist to it. I only watched this movie by coincidence because the movie I originally wanted to watch with my family had a corrupted file. I would not recommend this.

The garbage movie will take an hour of your life If there was a way to rate this garbage i would rate it -10, it takes idea from the Taiwan thriller 'Incantation', the same premise is played here about souls of the damned and the mechanics of how the protagonists are affected. Now take that, then throw a rip from the Ring to add to the producer's un-original ideas. Seriously, does anyone come out with anything of their own anymore? Acting is absolutely dismal, it's like the actors of this movie need to go back to school again and understand how to engage audience, Jumps scares are a yawner too. The music comes on and it takes a lifetime before the protagonist does anything worthwhile, this is just sad considering how many great products kdrama has produced.