Hmm. Let's see. Daughter Joo-hee (Kim Yoo-jeong) has developed a rash and been caught stabbing her doll with a discarded syringe. Not good. Mother Min-young (Kim Seo-hyeong) is an overworked architect hallucinating her new apartment building as a shabby domicile ready for the wrecking ball. Not good either. What's going on here? It's Kwon Il-soon's Hidden Floor, a pretty good fright flick that's part of 4 Horror Tales, a quartet of low-budget scary movies circa 2006 -- all but one written by Yoo Il-han. Yoo definitely has a classic formula at work here: A horrible crime (in this case the murder of a stubborn tenant and her son) must be uncovered by the living if the latter wishes to escape becoming one of the bitter dead's casaulties. Not that anyone will be believe her! I mean, ghosts... Really? Who believes in such things! You must be joking!!! Equally laughable are many of the performances: Like most B-movies, the exaggerated performances in Hidden Floor underscore how flat the other ones are. The exception? Kim Yoo-jeong. As the troubled pre-schooler who creeps out her babysitter, Kim feels vulnerable and menacing at the same time. You know she knows something about that hidden floor but you don't know whether that's a help or a hindrance to her mom.
November 20, 2010
Hidden Floor: Welcome to Your New Home... Time to Meet the Dead Neighbors!
Hmm. Let's see. Daughter Joo-hee (Kim Yoo-jeong) has developed a rash and been caught stabbing her doll with a discarded syringe. Not good. Mother Min-young (Kim Seo-hyeong) is an overworked architect hallucinating her new apartment building as a shabby domicile ready for the wrecking ball. Not good either. What's going on here? It's Kwon Il-soon's Hidden Floor, a pretty good fright flick that's part of 4 Horror Tales, a quartet of low-budget scary movies circa 2006 -- all but one written by Yoo Il-han. Yoo definitely has a classic formula at work here: A horrible crime (in this case the murder of a stubborn tenant and her son) must be uncovered by the living if the latter wishes to escape becoming one of the bitter dead's casaulties. Not that anyone will be believe her! I mean, ghosts... Really? Who believes in such things! You must be joking!!! Equally laughable are many of the performances: Like most B-movies, the exaggerated performances in Hidden Floor underscore how flat the other ones are. The exception? Kim Yoo-jeong. As the troubled pre-schooler who creeps out her babysitter, Kim feels vulnerable and menacing at the same time. You know she knows something about that hidden floor but you don't know whether that's a help or a hindrance to her mom.
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The man who was responsible for the demolition of the original building, killed the woman and boy, owns the neighborhood mini-mart, and attacks the heroine is never properly addressed and his story-line is never completed. One minute he's seen fighting off ghosts, and then his story just disappears. Why wouldn't the cops have an interest?
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