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Troublesome Night 19

2003

Director: Jameson Lam

Stars: Michael Tong, Helena Law Lan, Anita Chan, Simon Lui, Ronnie Cheung, Ken Wong

Troublesome Night 19? 19? Good lord, it's the movie series that simply will not die. This installment once again follows the Bud family (led by Helena Law Lan) as they go on yet another ghost-busting adventure. During a trip to the shore, Anita Chan finds a pair of sunglasses which turn out to be possessed, so the family heads back to the beach to try and solve the mystery. We know the glasses are possessed because there are a lot of "spooky" shots of them menacingly sitting on a table. In fact, the glasses probably get the most screen time of anyone in the movie.

Anyway, unlike the last film, which had a fairly serious tone to the proceedings, part 19 adds in a lot of dopey (and I mean even more awfully dopey than Wong Jing on his worst day) comedy -- much to the detriment of the movie as a whole. Any attempts at creating some sense of tension, suspense or horror is almost immediately cut off by some dumb schitck. At times, it almost feels like a Godfrey Ho movie, as it almost seems like the director mashed two different films together trying to get one cohesive unit.

Except that Troublesome Night 19 is yet another in the growing list of shot-on-video quickies cranked out by producer Nam Yin, who seems intent in driving this long-running series into the ground, just as long as one penny is still able to be squeezed out of it. If this installment is any indication, they had just better stop right now. Troublesome Night 19 wasn't a truly horrible movie, but the series has definitely taken a nosedive with this entry.

RATING: 4

A review of the DVD for this movie can be found here

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