Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
Plot: A grieving wife and the sister of of a nurse pays two Tao priests to commune with the spirits of their deceased loved ones in a famously haunted hospital.
Review: When I’m looking for something creepy to watch and I can’t think of anything in particular, I tend to seek out foreign horror films. In my general experience even the ones that aren’t great are still decent. But while Hospital has a couple of bright moments, this small budget Chinese supernatural horror doesn’t offer up anything exciting or more importantly, terrifying.
With a small cast of only five main characters, Hospital is best when the supernatural elements are subtle. A shadow in the corner of the room, a figure in the distance, a quick movement of light that makes you wonder if something ominous is hunting our protagonists. The stories are simple and straightforward, which makes for a breezy pace.
But other than a few solid scares, everything else here is way below what I usually find in these types of horror movies, especially in the foreign ones I’ve come across on Netflix. The decisions made by the majority of the players are beyond foolish and there was one person in particular whose demise I was rooting for. They weren’t evil or anything, but they ticked off the trope of “character who gets innocents killed” because of their foolish actions. It’s one of the absolute worst tropes found in these types of movies and a very lazy way to get the story moving forward.
With a slew of better foreign language genre films out there I couldn’t possibly recommend wasting time with this one. Feel free to skip your visit to this particular Hospital.
Sommer’s Score: 3 out of 10
So what’s your favourite Asian horror film? For my review of Philippines horror U-Turn you can click here. Or for Featured Writer Alice’s review of Taiwanese horror series Detention you can click here.
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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