The Haunted Cinema II

恐怖电影院2

China, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 82 mins.

Director: Lu Shilei 陆诗雷.

Rating: 4/10.

So-so frightfest has flashes of style but not enough to lift it out of the Mainland horror rut.

STORY

Somewhere in rural China, the present day. Zhang Cheng (Huang Zicheng), manager of a multiplex that is about to open, is working late with his assistant Eryong, who believes he sees a female ghost in the building. Zhang Cheng doesn’t believe him, but Eryong ends up dead in the lift. Sometime later, Yu Muqing (Yin Guo’er), daughter of the cinema’s owner (Wang Zhenhua), invites seven former classmates to an advance midnight screening of a horror film at a multiplex which is about to open. The distributor is paying each of them RMB2,000, hoping for good advance publicity on social forums. Even before the film starts, one of the group, Selina (Yan Wei’er), is spooked by a female ghost in a red dress who’s been haunting her for some time; and Mengqi (Qu Xinya), who’s just stolen a wallet from a locker, is accidentally scared out of her wits in the toilets by Pan (Ren Qing’an), the projectionist, who’s recently lost his son. In the auditorium everyone has to sit in preassigned seats and wear a ghost mask throughout the film. Ailun (Song Jiaohao) starts texting Selina, his secret girlfriend, but they’re interrupted by the screams of his actual girlfriend, Liu Fei’er (Sun Wenhui), who’s seen a female ghost in her row. After everyone calms her down, Ailun and Selina sneak away to an empty auditorium to make love, but she nags him about not having broken yet with Liu Fei’er. Meanwhile, Yu Muqing pops out to the manager’s office, where she inspects a box with eight syringes inside. Half an hour into the film a masked figure knocks out Pan, the projectionist, and then gasses everyone in the auditorium. When they wake up, they’re tied to their seats and a message on the screen says “Welcome to the Haunted Cinema”. Yin Guo’er appears with her box of syringes, politely saying she needs their help by donating a little of their blood. She explains she is acting under orders of the masked figure who knocked out the projectionist.

REVIEW

Three years after The Haunted Cinema 恐怖电影院 (2014), the same producer – prolific horrormeister Niu Zhaoyang 牛朝阳, who previously directed a couple himself – is among those behind The Haunted Cinema II 恐怖电影院2, a so-so frightfest that’s superior to the first movie but still suffers from jerky development in the script by Ji Ran 纪然 (Ghost in Barber’s 恐怖理发店, 2017) and Huang Xiaoguang 黄晓光 (Haunted Dormitory: White Paper Girl 怨灵宿舍之白纸女生, 2017; Haunted Dormitory: Marionette Teacher 怨灵宿舍之人偶老师, 2017). Director Lu Shilei 陆诗雷 – who had all three of those movies, as well as Haunted II, released in 2017 – directs with a smidgeon more style than Yuan Jie 袁杰 on the first Haunted but not enough to make this stand out among the dozens of other Mainland budget horrors. By 2017 the air had gone out of the horror boom and box office was way down, at RMB2.6 million, the new average for this type of fare.

In its set-up of a group of horror-film fans invited to a screening and then being tied in their chairs, the film owes a debt to Admission by Guts 惊魂电影院 (2015), an above-average scarefest that came out a few months after the original Haunted. The remaining hour veers off into Daoist mysticism and gates-of-hell stuff, not too smoothly developed and played with little character by its cast of disposable millennials. It was the final film by Changchun-born scream-queen Yin Guo’er 殷果儿, then 25, a Niu discovery who ground out over half-a-dozen budget horrors during 2014-17 and always gave the same just-okay performance.

Technical credits are fine, though without any over-arching style in the widescreen photography by Lu Yao 陆尧.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanxi Filmoon Pictures & Culture (CN), Beijing Filmoon Pictures & Culture (CN), Zhejiang Eastern April Day Film & Culture (CN), Hunan TV Programme Culture (CN), Beijing Suiyuan Cultural Development (CN).

Script: Ji Ran, Huang Xiaoguang. Photography: Lu Yao. Editing: Wang Peng. Music: Qu Peng. Art direction: Lv Huaguo. Styling: Li Shumei, Xie Tao. Sound: Liu Enhua. Executive direction: Liu Danian.

Cast: Yin Guo’er (Yu Muqing), Huang Zicheng (Zhang Cheng), Liu Xiaoqi (Du Qi), Yan Wei’er (Selina), Song Jiaohao (Ailun/Allen), Sun Wenhui (Liu Fei’er), Qu Xinya (Mengqi, model), Wu Peng (Huashengdou, Mengqi’s boyfriend), Ren Qing’an (Pan, projectionist), Ding Keyu (Xiaomeng/female ghost), Wang Zhenhua (Yu Muqing’s father).

Release: China, 20 Oct 2017.