This time out your Favorite Catgirl Movie Reviewer is off to Korea for another slice of atmospheric Asian flavored horror, “Yoga”. Creepy goings on in an evil ashram, where the quest for physical perfection takes a terrible, terrible wrong turn are the theme of the day. Seems we’re in for another look at the problems of  Asian women and their self-image issues with the customary horror twist that the Koreans love to add.

The synopsis goes like this: “Successful at her job until she was out shined by a younger, prettier co-worker, a confident and perfectionist career woman, Hyo-jung, visits a strange yoga institute run by a mysterious ex-actress at the advice of a radically transformed school friend. There, Hyo-jung meets several other women like herself, a former popular singer who faded away into obscurity, a religious fanatic, a girl battling weight issues, and a woman beset by numerous personal misfortunes including a divorce and a failed plastic surgery procedure. All of them have something in common: a belief that somehow beauty will help them overcome the difficulties they face. At the beginning of the intensive training course, a young yoga master, Nani explains to Hyo-jung and the others that only the one person who masters the course most successfully can actually win the secret of ultimate and immortal beauty. There are five unusual rules for them to follow during the one week course:

#1. Never eat without permission.

#2. Never take showers within an hour before or after the class.

#3. Never look at themselves in a mirror.

#4. Never leave the school building.

#5. Never try to call or contact anyone until finishing the course.

As the training goes on, they soon discover that the quest for beauty, has a terrible price.Each of the girls get tempted to break those rules caused by each woman’s secret hidden craving and Hyo-jung starts to sense there is something evil about this institute and the actress who doesn’t get old…”

Neko wonders what exactly there is in the Asian psyche that makes such horror films so prevalent of late. But… no matter. I just plain like watching them as I squirm uncomfortably on the couch. Naturally, you all want to know what this one is exactly all about, so let’s get to it….

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It’s been a while since I’ve seen one, but here we are again with another lil’ horror goodie from the Philippines, “Tarot”. Fortune telling…. ghosts…. weird doomsday cults… evil curses… and romance, sigh. Yep, certainly sounds like a “Nekolishous” film alright.

Our Synopsis? “As a young child Cara has the habit of observing her grandmother, Lola Auring (Gloria Romero) at work. She is a tarot reader by profession, and her granddaughter slowly develops her talent and accurately predicted the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 and the death of two of her family members; her father and grandmother. Cara’s psychic ability seems to bring bad luck to her family rather than good luck.

Concerned with her natural ability to predict future events, Cara’s mother (Susan Africa) forbids her to read tarot cards, and the cards are laid to rest with her grandmother inside the coffin. Many years later the adult Cara (Marian Rivera) has to reopen her grandmother’s coffin to seek the tarot cards’ help to locate her missing fiancé, Miguel (Dennis Trillo) when both were separated while hiking in the forest.

She eventually finds him, but mysterious deaths start to affect people around her. Cara soon learns that it was related to the curse on her grandmother during her youth days, where she was part of a cult that worshiped tarot cards. Other members committed suicide and Auring decided not to join them, and the curse spreads to his family members including Cara herself. Now Cara must find a way to stop this curse before more people becomes the victim…”

Mmmmmm. I’ve a really good feelin’ about this one, but you know as much as I do that sometimes your Favorite Catgirl gets her hopes up too quickly for these. Still…. can’t hurt to take a peek, right? Let’s all snuggle down and I’ll tell you all how this one stacked up. By all means, gentle visitor, “Read On”!!

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A new week, another day off, and another review!! This time out a quick look at one of the horde of Indonesian horror films currently teetering precariously on top of my “To watch” pile next to the DVD player. I swear…. at the rate new stuff arrives at the apartment, I’ll be buried before long.

Our quick synopsis goes like this: “A young gentleman called Putra (played by Restu Sinaga) marries Amira (played by Indah Kalalo) and would like to give the best honeymoon experience for his wife in his privately owned island. However, strange ghostly incidents are haunting them as a newly wed couple.

From an exotic bedroom to a swimming pool filled with excitement to their romantic bathroom and in every corner of the island, a female ghost dressed in a wedding gown is seeking blood debt from the couple.

A dark secret is waiting to be revealed, changing their romantic night into a scary encounter with the ghost. Who is the ghost and why is she terrorizing them?”

Yep…. this sounds pretty much like your standard Indonesian horror effort. It’s been a while since one really wowed me…. is this one gonna be one of those amazing hidden gems your Favorite Cargirl occasionally encounters? Maybe yes…. maybe no. Am I still gonna watch the goofy thing? Yeah….

Guess you’ll just have to stick with me and see how this one stacks up. (C’mon!!…. it’s not like you don’t wanna!! Neko knows you all too well. Hehehehe!!)

So surrender to your secret needs and “Read On”!!

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Here’s an odd one this time out…. 1977’s Japanese fantasy film, “House”. I’ve been aware of it for over a decade or so, but it’s one of those quirky lil’ films that seemed stubbornly destined to never ever get subtitles or be shown anywhere near my part of the world. Thank goodness that’s now at an end!! UK DVD distributor Eureka has released this one in a new Region 2 NTSC collector’s edition as pert of their “Masters of Cinema” collection. Naturally I wasted no time in snapping up a copy…..

Our synopsis goes like this: “A teenage girl named Angel discovers that her widowed father has recently begun dating again. Worse, Angel’s father has canceled the yearly summer vacation that he and Angel take every year together in order to stay near Ryoko, his new girlfriend, whom he intends on marrying soon. Furious at this situation, Angel invites her friends to come with her to her visit her long lost aunt at her remote country home.

Arriving, they discover Angel’s aunt seems to be sick and wheelchair bound, and they all agree to help fill their time fixing up her run down estate located in the woods. However, unknown to anyone, the aunt is, in reality, a vampiric witch who feeds off the flesh of young virgin girls to sustain her youth and strength. Possessing her niece, the aunt murders the girls one by one with help from her bewitched house. In the end, the aunt takes over Angel’s body so she can continue waiting for her long lost fiancee, who went M.I.A. during World War II, to finally return to her. Will any of them survive the strange horrors and escape alive?”

Wow…. now this one certainly sounds like Neko’s sort of film. I’ve always loved the creepy weirdness of 70’s Japanese ghost stories…. so I’m hoping for something along the lines of “Mansion of the Ghost Cat” or “Kuroneko”. I’ve heard however that this one is…. well… a bit stranger than the Japanese films I’m used to. Will it live up to it’s reputation and still turn out to captivate and entertain me? Guess there’s only one way to find out….

Psssst!! That’s your cue….. it’s time to “Read On”, o’ Gentle Visitors!!

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Ever wonder what a movie like “The Bad Seed” crossed with “The Belles of St Trinians” and seasoned with more than a heaping helping of “Psycho” just might be like if it were done with an all Russian cast? Well wonder no more…. From the land of Borsht and Vodka comes “Yulenka: Deadly Lessons”. Neko’s been aware of this one for some time now, but it’s taken me a while to hunt down some decent English subtitles…. until now.

The simple synopsis goes: “Professor Andriy Belov moves to a small town from the capital, and from his university to a woman’s high school, so that his wife can get the treatment and air she needs. After a short time a the school, he begins to notice strange things happening to his students. The students in the fifth class don’t play with dolls, they delight in making a toy of human lives.

One day he finds a note reading ‘Save Us,’ and he begins to take action. As he investigates, his life degenerates into a nightmare, and his only hope is a lone little girl, Yulenka….. or does something evil hide behind her innocent eyes?”

This is another of those odd little films for which your Favorite Catgirl ends up spending her odd hours searching high and low for subtitles when the original DVD lacks them. Sometimes I find them right away… other times it take a while… sometime it takes an excruciatingly looonnggg time. These ones required me to delve into some fairly odd places in the former Soviet Union, but my perseverance has finally paid off, and so now…. with some fairly accurate fan-translated subtitles in hand and a copy of the Region 5 DVD…. “Yulenka” is finally mine!!

Was it worth all my silly efforts (not to mention a fair amount of Bablefish translation of Cyrillic Russian)? Guess you’ll have to “Read On” to find out!!

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After yesterday’s terrible Indonesian horror film your Favorite Catgirl needed something to clean and soothe her lil’ brain and what better than a nice Thai ghost story, eh? Mmmmm… romance, ghosts… and bloody mayhem, now that’s entertainment!!

The synopsis goes as follows: “Three ex-girlfriends, three dates with death

Has she really left you?

Ken (Chakhrit Yamnan from Bangkok Dangerous) is a ravishing young superstar and the dream date of every girl. While he can attract any woman he wants, every detail of his life ends up in gossip columns and tabloid magazines.

Two of his previous girlfriends — high-society girl Meen (Navadee Mokkhavesa) and innocent college student Bow (Atthama Chiwanitchaphan) — have already been exposed by the media. After dumping the pregnant Meen, he is now dating gorgeous young actress Ploy (Wanida Termthanaporn) and their every move makes the headline.

When news leak that Ken will marry Ploy, the media goes into a frenzy and the couple’s dream life turns into a nightmare. It seems that someone is stalking them, day and night. Is it an ex-girlfriend, an obsessed fan or vengeful paparazzi? Ken’s agent, Nimit (Bordin Duke), encourages him to take a break at his beachfront house but the problem only escalates as Ken starts to have visions of a woman and mysterious scratches begin to appear on his body. One by one, the people around Ken start to disappear…”

I just know this one is gonna be good! Wanna find out for sure? Then you’re just gonna need to “Read On” and find out…. silly!!

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OMG!! She’s BAAAACCK!! Dewi Perssik… Indonesian singer and wannabee actress is coming at us again in her latest Indonesian Horror/ comedy attempt, “Paku Kuntilanak”. Yes… I know, Dewi seems determined to become a movie star even if it kills us…. and worse, this one is a sequel to the utter waste of celluloid, “Setan Budeg”….

Synopsis? Yeah… we got one, and it goes somethin’ like this: “Three corpse hunters Sukun (Edi Brokoli), Obeng (Rizky Mocil) and Odjie (Hardi Fadhilah) have been assigned to search for a kuntilanak that has been reincarnated following the removal of a nail on its head by their superior, Pak Joko (Kiwil).

Pak Joko has been pressurized by his mother to get married in his increasingly old age. He tries to woo his secretary Mona (Chinthyara Alona) but got rejected by her. One day a beautiful lady called Kunti (Dewi Perssik) appears and she is actually the corpse that the hunters have been searching for.

Pak Joko falls in love with her beauty and decides to marry her. The hunters and his secretary try to convince Pak Joko that Kunti is a reincarnated kuntilanak that is seeking revenge against people who have hurted her in the past. Will Pak Joko succeeds in marrying Kunti?”

Sigh…. Dewi Perssik… and that goofy bunch of comedians from “Setan Budeg”… am I really ready to sit through this? Even if it does have a version of the kuntilanak in it? Grrrr!! Alright…alright!! I’ll do it… but only because I like trashy movies sooo darn much!! (Please.. gentle visitors, pray for me!!)

Luckily… the rest of you can simply “Read On” and get the jist of this one without risking the actual viewing of what I’m almost certain will redefine terrible movie entertainment.

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“Sexy Killer”….. This one actually got mentioned to me some while ago as a quirky zombie comedy film I should definitely check out, but my inquisitive, insatiable quest for a decent source of weird Spanish films has so far failed to reward me with a reliable source directly out of Spain…. Luckily for me the Region 2 UK release for this one has remedied that lil’ problem.

The synopsis for it reads: “At an exclusive university dead bodies are turning up with alarming frequency, all believed to be victims of the notorious Campus Killer. The police are stumped as to who the killer might be and, of course, nobody suspects innocent looking med student Barbara. A superficial fashion queen whose childhood dream was to grow up to become the living embodiment of her favorite doll, Cindy Superstar, all Barbara needs now is to find herself a real-life equivalent of Cindy’s plastic partner, Glenn. But behind the mask of her perfectly applied make-up is a deadly cross between Paris Hilton and American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, a female serial killer for whom ruthlessly slaughtering people isn’t so much a question of why as one of why not?

Barbara’s grisly trail of murder fortuitously leads her into the arms of Tomas, a fellow student assigned to the campus morgue who is experimenting with a machine designed to translate thoughts and brainwaves into images. What he later discovers, though, is that with a little tinkering (and the addition of a healthy dose of Ecstasy to his subjects) the machine is able to reanimate the dead. Not surprisingly, this proves to be bad news for Barbara as Tomas begins reviving the Campus Killer’s victims in the hope that at least one of them will be able to identify their murderer. Of course, what he hadn’t bargained for was their insatiable hunger for both revenge and for human flesh. Soon, Tomas finds himself the innocent bystander in a bloody and explosive serial killer versus zombies showdown.”

Hmmm… now this one certainly sounds downright goofy. (And you know how Neko sooo likes goofy!!) So forgoing my usual popcorn and wine coolers, we opt for a movie night of spicy nachos and sangria, hoping the movie fairies will bless Carolyn and I with a delightfully grisly laugh fest to remember!! Think you might just like it too? Then you better “Read On” and find out more!

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Every now and again your Favorite Catgirl Movie Reviewer just plain misses the release of a film. I know… it’s hard to believe but…. It’s a biiiiggg ol’ world out there and surprisingly enough… one or two do escape my curious wanderings about the old Internet. Luckily for me… I am if nothing else persistent in the pursuit of new sources for the sorts of goofy films I like, so I was naturally excited to come across the original Region 2 Swedish release for this one, almost missed in my travels. But no more!!

Our synopsis? Well it goes something like this:“About 100 years ago, three students at the Hellestads Boarding School were brutally slaughtered, the murderer drowned himself in a lake nearby and his body was never found. The story has become a school legend for generations of students as well as a yearly festivity. Sara, a student, is writing an essay based on the legend and uncovers new facts from the event that will cast dark shadows on the family name of one of the school’s main beneficiaries. On the night of the hundredth anniversary, the festivities go awry, students disappear and something dark and unknown is moving through the schools corridors…is the curse of the “Drowning Ghost” true…. and who will fall victim next?”

Yep… sounds like a winner. But then I’ve been cruelly fooled before, so naturally I’ll just have to cuddle up on the couch with my popcorn and wine coolers and see if Sweden knows how to make those scary movies I like!! So let’s all “Read On” and find out what it’s all about.

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Here’s a rarity in my part of the world… an honest to goodness Singaporean movie. I order lots and lots of Thai films out of Singapore (Yes.. yes… that pesky subtitle thingee… don’t let me get started on THAT rant again… Hehehehe!!) but I can honestly say I’ve only ever snagged a couple of their local efforts over the years. Since you all know I’m just goofy for ghost stories, how could I not take a chance on something titled “Where Got Ghost?”….

It’s a horror anthology by local Singaporean writer/director Jack Neo and our synopsis goes as follows: “Every year on the Lunar 7th month is the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival and Singaporeans with Chinese heritage and background will be celebrating with their beloved family members that have passed away. Most common methods are burning paper money and offering food for their deceased family members. “Where Got Ghost” is a typical Singaporean horror-comedy movie that is divided into three stories, each with some thrills, some chills and quite a few laughs along the way…”

How did it stack up for me as a movie watching experience? Was it as charming as some Chinese ghost comedies? Or did they go with the toilet humor route that most Thai and Indonesian films like to go? (I admit I sorta expected the latter might just be the ticket here….. not that there’s a problem with that, mind you….Hehehehe!)

I guess we’re all about to find out, so you are certainly gonna want to “Read On” and see!

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