2006
Rated: R for graphic violence, and sexual themes.
Genre: Horror Thriller
Directed By: Junichi Suzuki
Running Time: 1:24
Review by: Lillian Patterson
Review Date: 10/2/08

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HAUNTED HIGHWAY

 

"Prepare to be driven insane," huh? I should have listened to the tagline on the front of the DVD. Typically, when the cover of a DVD shows a cool, painted scene and no shots of the movie itself, you're in for a horrible watch, but I was lulled into a false sense of security when I bought another excellent DVD from the store with a similarly painted cover, so I was hopeful that this movie would be good as well. Again, in this case, the tagline says it all. I should have listened. It was a warning written by the very hand of God. The movie's premise isn't without promise, though. A man is cheating on his wife with a beautiful and mysterious woman when he kills her, and the movie chronicles his internal struggle as he drives to dispose of the body. What could go wrong with a premise like that? First of all, this movie plays out like a bad wannabe Japanese horror flick. There are plenty of lame attempts at showing blurry, ghostly images of women with long black hair crawling around on the road, flickering in and out of frame, trying to look creepy.

As bad as this movie is, those images are actually the only cool thing on display here in this movie, as some of them are cool and effective in spite of themselves. Too bad that the rest of this movie doesn't bear out the frightening potential of these ghostly effects. Most of the movie consists of watching a boring, insane guy who can't act drive around talking to himself and being scared by stupid, ridiculous visions that don't look at all ghostly or real.  

See, for every blurry, cool looking ghost, there's ten more stupid visions that don't look remotely real or scary, but every time the guy sees one of them he jumps and screams and loses control of his car. It happens so often that it actually becomes rote and boring by the halfway point in the film. We're supposed to sit with rapt attention through this snoozefest while the long, pointless flashbacks slowly tally up until we get a picture of what happened in the days before this guy killed his lover, but the truth is, by that point in the movie, we don't care. The constant flashes of memory coupled with his jumpy, erratic behavior and the monotony of having the only dialogue in the movie coming from this guy's boring monologues with himself have allowed us to drift off to sleep, and aside from finding the surefire cure for insomnia, there's little else on display that would cause me to recommend this movie to anyone but people I don't like.

After enduring this bullshit for over an hour, we get a conclusion that doesn't hit any nerves and doesn't even make much sense. It's so anticlimactic I wanted to track the director down and stab him for putting me through the experience of watching this movie. I love indies, I support indies, and it pains me to say this, but this movie gives all other indies a bad name. The only reason you should ever buy this is to burn it and save other people from the horrid experience of watching this movie.

 

 

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