Sick Nurses (2007/Horror/Thailand/Magnet DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C- Extras: D Feature: B
For fans
of Asian horror, the Thai ghost/slasher film Sick Nurses is an easy sell. Even at first glance, the front cover is a
dead giveaway (pun intended) with its copious amounts of stringy straight black
hair, very consciously invoking flashbacks to The Ring, The Grudge,
and any other of the innumerable Asian/Asian-inspired horror films of the past
ten years. In fact, there are scenes in
the film that directly reference some of the most famous scenes from these
films. Think long-haired ghost crawling
out of a handbag rather than a TV. The ghost herself is so derivative of the
recent Japanese horror flicks, in particular The Ring, that it would be easy to dismiss this movie as a rip-off.
(Snakes on a Train, anyone?) But if you can put the ghost's appearance
aside, and really watch and appreciate the rest of the movie, you'll see that Sick Nurses has more to offer than just
a derivative version of what you've already seen a dozen times.
To begin,
the editing kicks off with a near-postmodern flair, introducing early the
images that will become important much later and playing with in and out of
flashbacks. This is sort of a toned-down
version of the eerie, dreamlike feel that pervades a lot of the Asian horror
films that don't ever get American remakes. But about ten minutes into the movie, this
aesthetic is all but abandoned in favor of what really makes this film
appealing. The film takes the ghost,
which is so recognizable as an Asian horror figure, and puts it in an American
slasher style plot. The ghost lurks
around the darkened corridors and more than a few bathrooms during the night
shift at a hospital and picks off the characters one by one. The plot is developed in bits and pieces
through a few flashbacks that are stuck in among the numerous and increasingly
creative deaths*. And while the plot has
a decent twist at the end, it's not really necessary. The average horror fan would have been satisfied
with the throw-away explanation which is the assumption through most of the
film.
The
execution of the film is near-top-notch with a blending of digital and
practical effects that compliment and at times even mask each other. Although, some of the overt digital effects at
the climax of the film seem a bit blunt in comparison with the rest of the
film, and some digital manipulation of the ghost, while time consuming for the
effects team, would have aided greatly in reducing the “Hey look, that chick is
spray-painted black” reaction.
The
picture is presented in anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 widescreen and was shot
on high-quality video. Fortunately the
quality shows through and the fact that it is video generally does not. The colors are rich which compliments the
creative lighting design, a trait increasingly apparent in recent Asian and
American horror films. The high picture
quality also enhances the many shots throughout the first half of the film that
explicitly show off the actress's figures in their almost fetishistic nurse
outfits.
The sound
is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and is of decent quality. It's not as sharp as it could be, but for this
particular movie that is not as much a disadvantage as it would be for others. This film actually has a startling lack of
background music, preferring to stick primarily with an exaggerated room tone
combined with spooky sound effects. Therefore the slight fuzziness of the sound
only really comes through when you're paying particular attention to the
dialogue. And since I always recommend
watching a film in the original language that it was made in, when you're
reading the English subtitles you're not likely to be paying enough attention
to the Thai dialogue as to really notice the dip in sound quality.
There is
a disappointing lack of special features on the disc consisting only of a
too-short Making Of featurette and a
collection of the same trailers that play before the menu. The Making
Of is surprisingly informative, especially if you pay attention to what is
going on in the background but ends too quickly.
Overall,
the quality of the film indicates that if they had really wanted to, the
filmmakers could have made a serious, super-creepy ghost film. Instead, they chose to gently lampoon horror
films from both sides of the Pacific creating the Thai equivalent of Scream, a horror burlesque that manages
to be a decent horror film in its own right.
*On a
personal note, every once in a while I will come across an image or sequence in
a movie, usually a horror movie, that until I saw it I never knew that I wanted
to see it. One of my favorite examples
is the scene in the Italian film Zombi 2
in which a zombie battle a shark underwater. One of those scenes occurs in Sick Nurses, not for the faint of
heart, in which one of the characters, whose bottom jaw and tongue have been
removed by chewing scalpel blades, is unceremoniously choked to death on an
embalmed fetus. Yes, it's gruesome, and
maybe my appreciation amounts to the sick delight shared almost exclusively by
horror fans, but that's really what you watch a movie called Sick Nurses for anyway, isn't it?
- Matthew Carrick
