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Black Night
(aka Dark Night)
2006; directed by Patrick Leung, Takahiko Akiyama, and Thanit Jitnukul

Obviously (ahem) "inspired" by the success of Three and Three... Extremes, Black Night is a anthology of horror films with similar themes, with each installment helmed by a director from a different Asian region. This time out, the stories center on water, and you'll probably need to splash your face with some of it to keep from falling asleep.

Black Night  Black Night

First up is Next Door from Hong Kong's Patrick Leung. It is the most successful of the three shorts presented here, mostly due to the slick cinematography and editing, since the pedestrian story and not-so-shocking twist isn't going to win any awards, especially with Leung employing the subpar thespianic talents of Annie Liu, Dylan Kuo, and Race Wong, all of whom are pretty, but have all the emotional range of a damp popsicle stick.

Black Night  Black Night

Next, we head over to Japan for Dark Hole, directed by Takahiko Akiyama, who apparently also doesn't have much to work with in the acting department and tries to shore the film's shaky foundation with slick visuals. Here, though, the experiment fails, since the techniques employed (such as slow motion through fish eye lenses) is more fit for film school wankery than a truly scary horror film.

Black Night  Black Night

The cinematic journey hits its' final destination, both literally and figuratively, with the Thailand portion, Thanit Jitnukul's The Lost Memory. Boring in all respects, this entry isn't even interesting to look at, and there's an annoying kid actor thrown in to boot. From the beginning, the viewer doesn't care about any of the characters ro what happens to them, instead marking the minutes until this film is finally over.

RATING: 4

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