Urban Myths (Korean 2022) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: An anthology film comprised of 10 stories that showcase all manner of psychos and the supernatural.

Review: Yes, another anthology film. No, you're not experiencing deja vu when I repeat the same complaints. In this instance, "Urban Myths" tries to use quantity to hide the weaknesses of the individual tales that, when combined, are underwhelming. There is one standout segment, but even that story completely fumbles the landing. Well, let's not beat around the bush any longer and see what we're getting this time around.

Tunnel: I'd love to say things start off strong, but, alas, this was as lame as it gets. There is an attempt to build up tension with a nervous guy hiding something from the police. This is fine, however, all we learn is that he accidentally killed some girl walking in the road...I guess. It doesn't matter, because our guy goes apeshit, screaming at the girl's ghost until she appears and beats him to death. Doesn't this kind of defeat the purpose of a vengeful spirit if she can simply appear and beat you to death hours(?) after dying? Wouldn't a better approach have been to make the guy go crazy in front of the cops or something? Whatever, dude.

The Woman in Red: If this tale was nothing more than a kill sequence from a feature-length film then I'd have no problem. Unfortunately for us, all we get is some bitch seeing the ghost of a girl she and her friends used to bully...I guess. Long story short, the ghost kills the bitch as we realize she's picking off the bitches from a high school photo we see. It's not that this is terrible unto itself, but we've seen this setup performed a thousand times by now.

Tooth Worms: This is a goofy tale, but I will admit it went in a direction far, far from what I was expecting. A germaphobe dentist attempts to treat a patient with a strange ailment. Drawing upon old folklore regarding the idea of worms infesting inside your teeth, the dentist becomes practically too scared to extract the alleged parasites. You might be wondering where this story is heading--maybe some kind of gross out body horror? Nope. What if I said zombie apocalypse? Bingo. Magically, these worms infect the patient to such a degree that he transforms into a zombie that spreads these zombie-worms with each bite until everyone is becoming zombies within minutes. Hey, I'll give the creators an A for creativity at the very least.

Necromancy: I've discussed the "friendships" of Korean girls before, but I think this time it's safe to assume the characters here are actual lesbians. Cutting to the chase, one of the girls commits suicide, because other people suspect their relationship or there was an off-screen rejection. Regardless of the motive, the girls made some kind of pact to resurrect the other should anything happen. I do like the buildup to this ritual, but the ghost ends up looking like something out of the shitty "Resident Evil" sequels rather than a proper spirit. The living girl failed to notice that in order for the ghost to come back she must "eat" her...which she does. The tale ends with the resurrected girl somehow becoming one with the other girl in an almost pretentious way. Eh, this was okay for what it was, and I liked the atmosphere.

The Wall: In a nutshell, this was an interesting idea ruined by a nonsensical, retarded ending. Some guy moves into an apartment whereby the neighbor is always hitting the wall, keeping the man up. Our main guy eases up on his annoyance when he sees it's a younger woman that he thinks is into him. So, instead of freaking out over the knocks, he tries to ask the woman out by knocking back. As you might easily guess, the woman is not doing the knocking and stands him up for the date. Wandering into the woman's apartment next door, he notices weird things going on which leads him to tear down the wall on his side of the apartment, revealing two dead bodies. Right when things are about to get interesting, our man is magically pulled into a portal. The end. What the fuck was that shit? I hate when I'm minding my own business and a portal just opens up to ruin my day.

The Closet: It's more of a cabinet, but to each their own. Well, this is, by far, the best segment in this series. It does all the things you'd hope from a short as far as getting to the point and having great atmosphere and suspense. Sadly, they dropped the ball with an ending that makes no sense and is both rushed and stupid. A woman notices that someone is giving away a cabinet for free on some app. Ignoring the danger signs, this woman meets the guy giving away the cabinet and goes into his apartment. Luckily for her, nothing happens but he does give off creepy vibes. Getting the cabinet to her apartment, the woman quickly becomes convinced that it's haunted as shifty things begin to happen including the door opening on its own. Rather than--I don't know--getting rid of the thing(!) the woman attempts to purify the spirits which appears to backfire. Right when things are really getting intense, the woman inspects the cabinet only to discover our creepy buddy from earlier was hiding inside a hidden compartment all along! This is shot so perfectly and makes for an excellent jump scare. Things, however, go off the rails after the woman stabs the bastard a shit ton and he magically survives and yanks the woman under the bed before the segment ends. I guess the guy was Michael Myer's Korean cousin or something. Setting aside the stupid way the events resolve, this was the kind of tale I wish comprised the entirety of this anthology. It was good enough to stand on its own, that's for sure.

Ghost Marriage: I've covered this concept before in other horror movies--typically involving ghost brides specifically. In this instance, I was hoping for some kind of Korean spin on things, but, nope, that's not what we get. All that really happens is some guy gets tricked into becoming the husband to a dead chick when he thought he was getting a cushy job. Is it too much to have both?! The story doesn't even emphasize why this is a bad thing or really explain much of what is happening. Oh well.

The Girl in the Mirror: This is probably the worst tale of the bunch. Some narcissistic chick will seemingly do anything to get attention online. Out of the blue she begins to see some kind of supernatural entity scaring her. After acting like a big bitch at home, this ghost or whatever comes out of her phone and kills the girl. Mmhmm. Bro, you have got to do better than whatever the hell this was supposed to be.

A Mannequin: Once more, this was an intriguing setup that falls off a cliff by the end. Two guys working at a warehouse are weirded out by the mannequins they're storing. The older guy tries to scare the other one by discussing the idea that you don't need to be worried about being short a mannequin but rather being scared when there's more than you started with. This I like. Idiotically, we go in a different direction with an online legend about people with mannequin faces which our main guy just so happens to come across right after hearing about it for the first time. This is like if you just found out about UFOs and then two seconds later you're abducted by aliens. It's just plain stupid. Worse, all that happens is the main dude is chased around a bit, seemingly kills a mannequin person, and then he transforms into one himself. The end. Just...why?! The beginning had promise and they kept showing some yoga mannequin that could have been the primary antagonist. Ugh, what a disappointment.

Escape Games: What I find most amusing about this tale is that this killer escape room experience is right in the middle of a shopping center next to a pizza place. It's like--imagine getting a slice of pizza and just wandering over to the escape room and dying two seconds later. I get the idea this slight detail was not factored into the editing of this story! Anyway, three friends that are supposedly experts on escape rooms are invited to some exclusive one. There is an attempt to make things creepy, but it felt so rushed given the time allotted for each tale. At the end, the characters all seemingly die despite two of them being alive mere seconds before the one guy enters the last room. Funny how that works. So, no, we do not end things on a high note.

Overall, this was a mediocre set of stories. While I can appreciate the instances of originality and creativity sprinkled about, fundamentally, the majority of the segments fall short. Yet again, there is no wraparound or overarching theme to pull the stories together in a meaningful way; this hurts an anthology so much in my book. As is the case with every other anthology I've reviewed, if there's a particular story that catches your eye then seek it out, but I can't necessarily recommend wasting your time with the movie as a whole.

Notable Moment: During the "Closet" segment when the guy appears in the cabinet. You know something is going to jump out, but the filmmakers effectively toyed with the expectation of what exactly was going to jump out. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

Final Rating: 5.5/10

Tastes of Horror Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: An anthology of weird horror shorts, allegedly, based off some webtoon series.

Review: The first thing I want to acknowledge is this whole idea of a webtoon series that inspired this movie. Yeaaah, I can't find that. If anyone knows where I can view these let me know! Well, supposedly, the best segments from that series were selected for feature-length. Let's just say if these were the best I'd hate to see the worst. More precisely, these tales are on the bland and aimless side of things. In fairness, the stories are shot well and competently put together...they're just weak and have little to no payoff. Allow me to demonstrate.

Ding-Dong Challenge: Starting things off is probably the most straight to the point entry. Three girls, that are aspiring dancers, notice an up and coming pop star appears to have copied her moves from a mysterious video online. It's not completely clear, or something was lost in translation, but if you do the dance in the haunted video accurately you're wish is granted, however, if you screw up, the ghost comes out of the video and kills you. I think that's the right interpretation of what we see. So it's hinted that the pop star getting famous had her wish granted, and the other girls attempt, and fail, to replicate the dance except one. When this girl is the last alive, seemingly having her wish granted, you think we are about to get the epic finale, but then it just ends. Okaaaay. I mean, the girls are cute and the ghost was pretty cool, but, ultimately, it's missing a final act and conclusion. Nevertheless, it's not a bad way to start the film.

The Prey: As with the first story, this second tale has an intriguing setup that goes nowhere and ends abruptly too. A girl trying to get grades good enough for medical school is beat by her mom and taunted by her sister for continued failures. One day, a ghost or demon of some sort appears to the girl promising good grades if she offers up animal sacrifices. Sure enough, the girl makes these sacrifices and begins to ace all of her exams. Later on, after having a Walking on Sunshine-esque montage, the girl realizes she needs a sacrifice asap, but the rabbit she planned to kill was returned. Uh oh. So she decides to, as one would naturally do, immediately spiral into a crazed, homicidal madness. She kills her sister, followed by her mom, and then--big shock--the segment ends out of nowhere. Did she even pass the last test?! Don't leave me hanging! Once again, what was the point? Who or what was this ghost-thing? It honestly would have made more sense to just say she snapped one day rather than this nonsense with supernatural elements. The main girl was really cute at least.

Jackpot: For our next tale, a guy that has won a ton of money gambling is hiding out at a seedy hotel while thieves are hoping to get their hands on those winnings. Contributing jackshit to the plot, the hotel is haunted, and the main guy sees ghost periodically. If these spirits connected in any way to the story I'd be okay, but, they don't, so what was the point? Through a series of zany antics, the hotel burns down, the main guy stays to burn too, and no one gets the money. Yes, you could argue the ghosts, who were suicides, wanted him to join them but that's a bit of a reach; maybe I missed something. Regardless, I wanted to like this entry for the goofiness and originality, but it's so hard to overlook the lack of a payoff in most of these stories.

The Residents-Only Gym: When this story starts, you might be like me and see a toned-up chick running on a treadmill and smile. Yes, here we go, boys! Unfortunately, this is probably the worst segment of the bunch. Long story short, the gym at some apartment building is haunted by a chick who died there due to the landlord's bitchiness. One dumbass tenant decides to ignore warnings not to go in after a certain time, runs into the ghost, barely survives, and still goes back later to get killed. Good job. At the end, the son of the landlord just has to use this gym too and dies. I guess that's a payoff to a degree, right? It just felt like they wasted the setting, and why would this ghost want to kill any random sucker simply trying to stay in shape, huh?!

Rehab: Moving along, we have a woman who was in some kind of accident that then wakes up in a weird room. The woman's memories are hazy as she's greeted by the one crazy bitch from "Squid Game." We learn the woman is in some kind of bizarre rehabilitation experiment whereby she needs to complete tasks in order to live. There is a level of pretentiousness here that is annoying as we learn the main chick has, seemingly, had her body donated to science after that accident at the beginning. Her brain is hooked up to machines and her consciousness is accidentally put into mice or something to that nature. Up to this point every tale had ghosts so for things to suddenly go sci-fi felt off. Maybe this should have been segment 2 or 3 to fix the flow; this is especially true given that the final story is grounded in reality.

Gluttony: Wrapping things up is probably the only, legitimately, entertaining story of the bunch. Two competing streamers in the mukbang scene have a beef after one was called out for being a fake. For those that don't waste their lives online, mukbang videos are just people eating ridiculous quantities of food, but they aren't necessarily competitive eaters. As an aside, the main chick is way too good looking to be eating that much food, however, I do approve. Anyway, these two once had an eating contest to prove they're for real resulting in the smaller girl being exposed, humiliated, and, as we come to learn, beat up by the main chick. The two decide to have a live-streamed rematch eating 5 large meals. Of course, this is a plot of revenge by the humiliated girl who, not only out-eats the main chick, but poisoned her as well. We then discover she had surgery done to make her stomach enormous. While there were no scares here, the weird-factor was interesting and original. Also, the main chick looked sexier the more unhinged she became!

So what are you really getting here? Well, there's no wraparound to tie things together, the themes are all over the place, and there's no consistency in tone or structure. Other than a guy watching the mukbang stream in the "Jackpot" segment, nothing links these stories together so that you'd know they came from this anthology; I've discussed this problem with numerous anthologies I've reviewed over the years. Other than that complaint, there simply isn't much going on here in general. The stories aren't bad, but they aren't good either--just okay. If any segment attracts you then, by all means, check this out, but I believe there are better alternatives out there, many of which I've covered previously.

Notable Moment: In the first story when the one girl has her eye ripped out. This was effectively executed and looked quite painful and grotesque.

Final Rating: 5.5/10