Black Night (2006) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A collaborative horror anthology of three tales from Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand.

Review: I do love it when countries work together to make a film, but this was not the best example of that unity. Something felt amiss in the presentation and the stories are really lame and forgettable. It was like they simply took a few scripts collecting dust and threw them together for a movie. I think there may be some truth to this notion as the segments each felt rushed, like material was cut, seriously lacking character development as if we already know these people, and with a ton of wasted plot points that appear to have no purpose. Also, I've criticized anthologies in the past for being too lazy to link their stories, but I'm not sure if the half-assing here was a better alternative; they try and pull off this water motif, but it fails miserably. Oh well, let's take a look.

Next Door: A strung out-looking chick returns home to her boyfriend after going abroad for whatever reason we never learn; it honestly doesn't matter one bit. It's Chinese ghost month as well which I guess is meant to be their excuse for why the events of the film occur in the first place; although. this was completely unnecessary and is merely a plot device or contrivance realistically. There's something with a ghost boy and a retarded marble, but I don't care. The main chick was gone for months and the boyfriend sort of moved on, I guess, as we get the impression the main chick is something of a hipster-loser forerunner. The two bang immediately, but the audience realizes the boyfriend was about to bang his neighbor instead before this unexpected appearance. The neighbor is seen as a ghost roaming about here and there trying to do her best impression of a waterlogged Kayako. We start to get love triangle bullshit between characters we don't know or care about like it's dramatic. Apparently the boyfriend is a detective, yet looks like a kid, and he handcuffed the neighbor earlier that night to be kinky. This led to a roundabout death when she fell in the tub and drowned like a fucking moron; they kind of imply that dumb ghost boy and the marble were responsible too. In fact, a lot of this segment comes off borderline comedic and over the top, but I seriously doubt this was intentional. Waterlogged Kayako tries to act tough and chases the main girl and the boyfriend around until she appears to try and kill them; I say "appears" because the scene is so dumb I'll touch on it as the notable moment. The boyfriend ends up shooting himself and the main girl and him jump out a window, but the ghost saves the main girl as a promise to the dumb boyfriend before he dies. We then cut to the main girl, cleaning herself up and actually looking kind of hot, as she seems to steal the neighbor's identity and plans to go to New York as the neighbor was originally going to do. Yeah, sure, totally legit...Asians can't tell Asians apart apparently. The segment ends with her giving the marble back to ghost boy who is just chilling out. Uhh...okay. I know this is going to sound sad, but this was actually the best of the three! The Kayako clone looked okay and could have been scary in the right hands, but, other than that, this segment is dumb, full of cliches, and clearly lacked focus.

Dark Hole: First we have ghost month and now we have Christmas. Yay. Don't get your hopes up though, because it has absolutely no point to the segment! This time the main girl is Yuki, played by Asaka Seto aka Misora from "Death Note," who is utterly insane. She is having strange hallucinations and dreams so she meets up with a therapist to figure this shit out. We learn that when Yuki was a kid she allegedly had a monster for a pet that killed the people in her life that were hurting her. I think the movie wants us to believe the creature could be real, but, at the same time, it goes out of its way to clarify it's all in Yuki's head; the pet is kind of her alter ego--a split personality that kills those who would harm her. We do see the creature, as shitty as it looks, but I never got the idea the audience is supposed to believe it's real. I suppose you could make an argument for it being real, but I always got the idea that it was how she imagined things playing out rather than coming to terms she killed those people. And if it were real, that means the creature can materialize in a puddle, magically become invisible when Yuki's mom goes to look at it, and have a psychic link to Yuki so she knows when it's coming. Yeah...umm, no, I think I'm sticking to it all being in her head especially given her guilt, motive to want them all dead, and her reactions with the therapist. Nice try though. Eh, all three of these segments have pretty much the same flaws and they are the ones I mentioned at the beginning so simply keep that in mind.

The Lost Memory: No holiday this time around, but they did save the worst for last...so there's that going for it. This segment also has the privilege of making the least sense. We have yet another crazy chick and another fucking love triangle too. The main girl was in some kind of car accident with her son and her memories are hazy which is stupid considering she probably wouldn't have been let out of the hospital if this were the case. Needless to say, the stupid kid is a damn ghost and a horribly acted one to boot. My understanding is that the main girl caught her husband cheating with her best friend, drove off in a frenzy, and crashed resulting in the death of the son. The husband tries to help the main girl at one point, but the ghost son throws a tantrum once they realize he's a ghost and tries to act tough. Shenanigans abound as they try to stop the brat resulting in the main girl being run over by a car. The segment ends with the husband now seeing the ghosts of both the wife and the son as if this is cool. Ugh, The drama is especially painful here as if we have a clue what is going on. Just like the first segment, the love triangle is meaningless and pointless when we don't feel the betrayal between the characters. On top of this, the presentation to this segment in particular is a mess and it feels disjointed from start to finish.

At least they managed to make the problems in each segment uniformed. They all have bad drama the audience doesn't have time to care about, lame characters, messy story lines, contrivances, and a general sense of pointlessness. You kind of have to see it for yourself to fully grasp the oddity to how the tales come together, but I wouldn't recommend you wasting your time though. In all honesty, this could have been decent with a different direction to the tales. The segments aren't necessarily terrible, but they are certainly mediocre and nothing we haven't seen before. I think I will give this an average rating for the effort and the collaboration aspect, but this is generous. I would definitely say pass this up and pick any number of better anthologies to watch.

Notable Moment: During the "Next Door" segment when the ghost is killing the boyfriend. The main girl says to take her instead which the ghost does. What makes this so exceptionally stupid is then the boyfriend does the same damn thing of asking the ghost to take him instead. My god, either the ghost wants these fucking people dead or not...enough with the bargaining! Nobody thought this made no sense while filming? Ugh, love triangles...

Final Rating: 5/10