A group of internet pen-pals decide to throw away the cloak of anonymity and meet up at the local beach and adjoining campsite for a weekend of fun. But what begins as harmless pranks and a little bit of lovin' soon escalates into complete chaos when a maniacal killer starts to pick off the helpless teenagers in a typically gruesome fashion. Now it's up to the survivors to work out who it could be - including the very real possibility that one of them could be hiding an extremely disturbing secret.
It's a little hard to believe nowadays but the premise behind FRIDAY THE 13TH was once an original idea. The thought of another movie depicting horny and stupid teenagers being picked off by a psychopath with some trivial grudge against them - or their employers/predecessors/hamsters etc - makes me cringe but the prospect of seeing how the Koreans, whose film industry I have nothing but the utmost respect for, tackled this infamous genre was an opportunity too good to pass up. And I'm glad I decided to splash out the £7.25 to DDDHouse for the privilige! "Bloody Beach" starts in dubious fashion, with a teenage girl being stabbed to death while doing the business on a train toilet, but soon picks up when the internet pen-pals meet up at their lakeside resort.
"Bloody Beach" isn't trying to compete on the same level as "Battle Royale" or "Ringu"; it's a fun slasher designed to emulate the early 1980s American slashers and for a large part of the time it succeeds admirably. The deaths are inventive, the dialogue is riddled with witty one-liners, the cast are wholly believable and the director knows how to generate a decent jolt or two. Plot holes are evident towards the end of the movie but we get a satisfying final reel with a stonking conclusion and a few totally unexpected twists and turns. "Deadly Camp" may have (wrongly) claimed the title in 1999 but "Bloody Beach" actually deserves it: this is FRIDAY THE 13TH - Asian style! Recommended - ***.5 / *****
It's a little hard to believe nowadays but the premise behind FRIDAY THE 13TH was once an original idea. The thought of another movie depicting horny and stupid teenagers being picked off by a psychopath with some trivial grudge against them - or their employers/predecessors/hamsters etc - makes me cringe but the prospect of seeing how the Koreans, whose film industry I have nothing but the utmost respect for, tackled this infamous genre was an opportunity too good to pass up. And I'm glad I decided to splash out the £7.25 to DDDHouse for the privilige! "Bloody Beach" starts in dubious fashion, with a teenage girl being stabbed to death while doing the business on a train toilet, but soon picks up when the internet pen-pals meet up at their lakeside resort.
"Bloody Beach" isn't trying to compete on the same level as "Battle Royale" or "Ringu"; it's a fun slasher designed to emulate the early 1980s American slashers and for a large part of the time it succeeds admirably. The deaths are inventive, the dialogue is riddled with witty one-liners, the cast are wholly believable and the director knows how to generate a decent jolt or two. Plot holes are evident towards the end of the movie but we get a satisfying final reel with a stonking conclusion and a few totally unexpected twists and turns. "Deadly Camp" may have (wrongly) claimed the title in 1999 but "Bloody Beach" actually deserves it: this is FRIDAY THE 13TH - Asian style! Recommended - ***.5 / *****