Campus Mystery

笔仙魔咒

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 89 mins.

Director: Guan Er 关尔.

Rating: 5/10.

Okay college/island horror gets the job done on a modest budget.

STORY

Fujian province, China, the present day. Song Duoduo (You Le’er), a psychology student at a medical college, has been having nightmares about a group of three white-masked people playing the ouija board-like game bixian 笔仙 (literally, “pen fairy”) round a table. All her faculty co-students have gone home, so she confides in her friend, fellow student Bai Ni (Yang Manyu), who says she needs something to toughen her up. She invites Song Duoduo along with her to join a ghost-story association, run by fellow student Lin Shuang (Li Siwen). All new applicants have to pass a “mission” (a dare) to be accepted as members, and Song Duoduo, Bai Ni, Bai Ni’s boyfriend Luo Jing (Tao Zui) and their friend Qi Xiaochuan (Chen Bingqiang) are all given one by Lin Shuang. As Song Duoduo and Bai Ni’s missions are both in the college’s old abandoned laboratory building, they agree to go together. Meanwhile, Song Duoduo receives an old letter from someone called “Lu” who says they will meet soon. At midnight Song Duoduo and Bai Ni enter the old lab building, where 10 years earlier a female student had suicided and her body been preserved in a tank of formalin. Song Duoduo’s mission is to retrieve the white skull; midway, however, she is attacked by a female ghost in white and passes out. She wakes to find the three others around her. The college doctor suggests she takes a short break with friends, and on the recommendation of Qi Xiaochuan they go to South Yuesha Island 月纱岛南岛, where a boat calls only every five days. On the beach at night, white-masked locals perform a traditional purification ceremony, and the hotel owner (Li Sa) tells them the place used to be called Evil Spirit Island 恶鬼岛. Song Duoduo keeps seeing things she half-remembers, as if she’s been to the island before. To stir her memory, Qi Xiaochuan proposes they play a game of bixian. During it, the “pen fairy” says Song Duoduo has been to South Island before. It also adds that its name is Lin Lu.

REVIEW

China’s one-man genre industry, Guangdong-born Guan Er 关尔, drinks again at the bixian 笔仙 well with Campus Mystery 笔仙魔咒, his third horror movie – after The Death Is Here 笔仙惊魂 (2012) and The Death Is Here III 笔仙惊魂3 (2014) – to use the name of the ouija board-like game in its Chinese title. After cranking out seven modestly budgeted features (all horrors or romantic comedies) in the past five years, Guan has quickly become more proficient on the technical side even if his scripts, by regulars Liang Xiaoxiao 梁潇潇 and Zhu Bei 朱孛, remain unambitiously generic. Campus pushes his usual envelope a little bit: instead of the young cast assembling in a creepy old mansion, here they go on holiday to a whole island, where the disturbed heroine is plagued by déjà-vu and general weirdness. Guan has also finessed his shooting style, using short scenes separated by fades, as well as making the opening 20 minutes, before everyone goes off to the island, into a mini-“ghost” story of its own, set in a university.

For the rest, it’s the same as usual: a screamy heroine, played OK by onetime ballet student You Le’er 游乐儿, 22, and various friends who may or may not be genuine, among whom the most characterful is her BFF, played by newcomer Yang Manyu 杨曼玉. Among the older cast, playing island locals, Li Sa 李颯 as a hotel manager intrigues in a slyly underplayed performance. Guan himself cameos as the heroine’s father.

As usual, too, Guan is better on build-ups than resolutions: in Campus the finale and revealed plot are both weak. Guan’s regular technical crew of d.p. Li Hongjian 李红建 and art director Ma Hongtao 马红涛 produce a smooth package, if a bit less atmospheric than his previous two bixian films. Locations were all in Fujian province, southern China, around Xiamen and Anxi. The Chinese title means “The Curse of Bixian”.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Jersey Films (CN), Yongkang Dongqing Films (CN), Zhejiang Shakes The Barley Films (CN), Beijing Jinyi Huachuang Phaedra Entertainment (CN), Jia’ni (Beijing) International Culture Media (CN), Ahu (Beijing) International TV Media Culture Development (CN), Film Legend Beijing TV Culture Media (CN). Produced by Beijing Jersey Films (CN), Yongkang Dongqing Films (CN).

Script: Zhou Wei, Liang Xiaoxiao, Zhu Bei. Photography: Li Hongjian. Editing: Luo Wei. Art direction: Ma Hongtao. Costumes: Cui Weiwei. Sound: Qi Jie, Qu Peng, Liao Weichao. Executive direction: Qiu Yuanhua.

Cast: You Le’er (Song Duoduo), Chen Bingqiang (Qi Xiaochuan), Yang Manyu (Bai Ni, Song Duoduo’s friend), Tao Zui (Luo Jing, Bai Ni’s boyfriend), Zheng Huixin (Tuantuan, young girl in shop), Ye Sitong (Lin Lu), Li Siwen (Lin Shuang, association head), Chen Yuxing (Sang Hai, mute), Li Sa (Guo Fuxiang, hotel owner), Tang Wenai (Tang, college doctor), Li Ling (Li Xue), Su Baoxian (Liu Dan), Guan Er (Song Duoduo’s father), Chen Qing (boat captain), Deng Huijun (Deng, college mail officer), Liao Libin (policeman), Zhang Xiaoli (Song Duoduo’s mother).

Release: China, 16 Oct 2015.