Admission by Guts
惊魂电影院
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 83 mins.
Director: Wang Ming 王鸣.
Rating: 6/10.
Above-average Mainland horror set in a cinema has a quiet authority and quality.
STORY
Somewhere in China, the present day. Nine members of a horror-film fan club go to a late-night showing of an old film, Admission by Guts 惊魂电影院. They are: Playboy (Wang Ye), who’s just been caught in bed with a married woman; Piggy Lady (Han Xuelian), who can’t stop eating snacks; Glasses Man (Mei Wenze) and his girlfriend Blind Lady (Zhao Yuanyuan); Lovelorn Lady (Qiu Endian), who’s still trying to get over her ex-boyfriend Wang Ming; Mobile Man (Jiang Zhongwei), who can’t stop using his phone to reach someone called Sun Wukong/Monkey; Pirate (Hong Tu), who records films in cinemas for pirate DVDs; and The Master (Yao Yiqi), who can predict the future (maybe), and his streetwise friend Riff-Raff (Lin Xiaofan). The film is in b&w and has intertitles for dialogue, like a silent film; it first played five years ago at the old Star Cinema 新光剧场. Its plot concerns five people – a mother and her young daughter, a couple of lovers, and a man with a scarred face – who are watching a horror film and find the cinema is haunted. Soon after the film starts, Mobile Man – just like a character in the film – receives a text message saying “Ghost in cinema, leave immediately”, and then has an incoming call rom a mystery voice. Exasperated by his constant use of the phone, Pirate tells Mobile Man to come outside the auditorium to teach him a lesson. There, Mobile Man pulls out a hammer and brains Pirate; hearing a phone ringing, he roams the building trying to find it and comes across Pirate, who then kills him. These events are shown on screen in the cinema, and gradually the ghostly fortunes of the nine people in the audience seem to parallel those of the characters in the film they’re watching.
REVIEW
Though it was released some seven months after The Haunted Cinema 恐怖电影院 (2014) – the first Mainland horror set in a moviehouse – Admission by Guts 惊魂电影院 is a far better production on every level. Despite being lumbered with a dreadful (if memorable) Chinglish title – the Chinese just means “The Scary Cinema” – Admission not only has a clever central idea that puts many other budget Mainland horrors to shame but also, unlike Haunted, is entirely set in the building in question. At RMB8.7 million, box office was only two-thirds of Haunted, which promptly went on to plunder some its ideas in The Haunted Cinema II 恐怖电影院2 (2017).
Unless he’s the identically named director at Hunan TV, there’s no biographical information available about writer-director Wang Ming 王鸣, who hasn’t directed another feature before or since. His admirably lean screenplay has nine members of a horror-film fan club turning up to watch an old movie at a late-night show, and all their “ghostly” antics mirroring those of the movie on screen (which is also about a group of people watching a horror movie). Some of the backstory doesn’t quite make sense in its timeline, but otherwise Admission is full of quirky, semi-comic touches: the film they’re watching is only a few years old but in b&w and with dialogue intertitles like a silent film; the characters in the audience (introduced briefly at the start) include a blind girl, a film pirate with his digital recorder, and a couple of young loafers who comment on the action. Also, the final explanation – a regular feature of Mainland horrors, in which ghosts are proscribed – doesn’t, for once, involve a psychologist or mind-bending medication. It’s actually quite simple, with a touching little coda.
What immediately marks the film out, however, is the care in the direction and performances, as well as the pacing of the shocks. Simply said, the film has a quiet authority that’s a notch up on most other Mainland horrors. As a kind of slobby Greek Chorus, Lin Xiaofan 林晓凡 (who later played the wide-boy in The Enigma of Arrival 抵达之谜, 2018) and Yao Yiqi 姚一奇 (as a wannabe master fortune-teller) provide a wry centre for all the antics, while Hong Tu 洪涂 and Jiang Zhongwei 蒋中炜 pair well as the film pirate and his mobile-phone tormentor. The female roles aren’t as well developed but Zhao Yuanyuan 赵圆圆 (The Sword Identity 倭寇的踪迹, 2011) is fine as a blind girlfriend and Qiu Endian 裘恩典 as a lovelorn woman with a mind of her own.
Technical credits are all smooth, with an especially good main title featuring dilapidated cinemas and old movie tickets.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Execution International Film & Culture (CN), Tibet Film & TV Development (CN), Beijing Joy Joy Film (CN), Beijing Universal Arts Carnival Culture & Media (CN). Produced by Beijing Execution International Film & Culture (CN).
Script: Wang Ming. Script advice: Lin Meiru, Kang Bo, Deng Youwei. Photography: Wei Zai. Editing: Zhong Yijuan, Zhang Meng. Music: Er Dong. Art direction: Zuo Mengyuan. Costumes: Sun Tian. Styling: Qi Ying. Sound: Bai Tianhao. Visual effects: Chen Yang.
Cast: Yao Yiqi (Da Shi/The Master), Lin Xiaofan (Pizi Nan/Riff-Raff), Jiang Zhongwei (Shouji Nan/Mobile Man), Hong Tu (Daoban Shang/Pirate), Wang Ye (Huaxin Nan/Playboy/Zhang Shuai), Qiu Endian (Shilian Nv/Lovelorn Lady), Mei Wenze (Yanjing Nan/Glasses Man), Zhao Yuanyuan (Mang Nv/Blind Lady/Lanlan), Yu Qingbin (Chen Xiaogang), Zhang Ling’er (Chen Xiaoying), Han Xuelian (Chihuo Nv/Piggy Lady), Chen Xi, Chen Jia (couple in film), Dong Hui (middle-aged mother in film), Liu Jiayi (Lingling, young daughter in film), Xu Ang (security guard in film), Wang Yingwu (old fortune-teller), Jiang Xuanyi (tattooist), Lv Yu’an (voice of surprised husband).
Release: China, 19 Jun 2015.