One of two
follow-up movies to Tanit Jitnukul's original horror movie of the same name
(2004 / trailer),
Art of the Devil ll is a titular
sequel only and is completely unrelated to the first film. (Art of the Devil III [2008 / trailer], in turn, while likewise only titularly related to Art I, is a prequel to this movie.) The shared narrative aspect of
all three horror films, all of which were highly successful in their homeland
but haven't exactly gained much notice elsewhere, is that of black magic.
That said, let's
take a closer look at the film at hand, which was pulled from our pile of
"mystery DVDs" (i.e., don't when or why or how it was procured) and watched
last week with an audience of four. Art
of the Devil ll also elicited four different reactions: one person said
"That sucked"; another dismissed it with "That was gross";
a third said "That was an enjoyably bad movie"; and lastly came the
protestation, "Hey, it was a pretty good flick". We were the
protesting party. For: "Sucked" it did not, "gross" it often
was, and a "bad movie" in the sense of psychotronic fun or fun crap
like Showgirls (1995 / trailer)
or The Hottie and the Nottie (2008 /
trailer) it is most definitely not. And we ourselves at least founds the movie often rather horrific.
True, The Art of the Devil II may be low-culture
trash, as body-count and other genre films generally are, but it is also interesting
in many ways and easily retains viewer interest, and not just because of the
exotic factor. (This alone makes it way better than most movies out there, and
not just genre films.) Like many Asian films the editing sometimes overly
streamlines the narrative, not only moving the story forward in jumps but also
resulting in gaps that require some quick and creative thinking on the part of
the viewer. Still, considering that the movie was directed by seven directors (Pasith Buranajan, Kongkiat Khomsiri, Isara Nadee,
Seree Phongnithi, Yosapong Polsap, Putipong Saisikaew and Art Thamthrakul), Art of the Devil ll is
not only surprisingly coherent, but the acting passable to excellent. In this
regard, the evil woman of the film, the total MILF teacher Mrs. Panor (Napakpapha
Nakprasitte), excels: sexy
throughout, she succeeds at different points to convey likability, pain,
seductiveness, bitchiness, pure evil — in other words, the full gamut needed to
become a convincing character. It is not surprising that she was nominated for
acting awards that year by both the Bangkok Critics Assembly as well as the Thailand National Film Association. (The various no names that play the fodder don't
excel in any way, but considering that dubbing usually makes bad actors even worse
and they merely come across as weak, they do a perfectly acceptable job.)
The basic plot of Art of the Devil ll has little
to do with art, other than that there are a few obscure references to tattoos and
the MILF also has some devilish body art. The basic plot involves a group of students
returning to their countryside home after two years in the big city for the
funeral of the father of their friend, Ta (Namo Tongkumnerd, also of Art of the Devil III and 407 Dark Flight 3D [2014 / trailer]), who stayed behind in the backwaters
of Thailand. But things are not as they seem in them there backwaters, and come
nightfall the realization comes that the sins of the past are now demanding their
due.
Ghosts and dead people play a part in a moral tail that is anything but gore lite and that also (Thank god!) lacks
the Asian (e.g., Japanese and Korean) obsession with
long-haired ghosts. The moral to the tale is a
simple one: don't fuck around with black magic. Black magic, however, is the
shared sin of all those in the movie, and they pay dearly for their sins; the dark arts are even at the foundation of the final twist of the movie, a twist that we for
one did not see coming. (Indeed, a slow-dawning twist of Art of the Devil ll is the
realization that the evil MILF was, basically, driven to madness and evil by
all those around her, and that she became what she is due to desperation caused
by factors that she had no control of. Be careful of what you create, we must
say.)
The horror in Art of the Devil ll is of the
illogical supernatural type, in that the way it manifests itself is often more
nightmarishly inane than fully understandable. Much like, say, in the great
granddaddy of all Gothic horror novels, Horace Walpole's The Castle of
Otranto,
in which the about-to-marry Conrad dies by being crushed by a gigantic helmet
falling from the sky, there is often no logical explanation why something
happens or why some die in a specific way, other than it is supernatural. Two
deaths that perfectly exemplify this would be the first one, in which a man
(whom we later learn was the local gym teacher) suffers fishhooks emerging from
beneath his skin, and the death of Ko [Pavarit
Wongpanitch], who suffers a similar fate, only this time it's living
lizards that bloodily and fatally force themselves out from under his skin. Bloody,
but why fishhooks or lizards? Especially since the evil MILF generally seems to prefer a more
hands-on or at least direct approach. But then, black magic and revenge follows
no logic but its own.
Amidst all the many
gore highlights are other events that are more mundane but nonetheless
effectively horrific, as exemplified by the scene in which the group suddenly
realize that their half-eaten evening meal is made from their missing friend Noot
[Chanida Suriyakompon]. (The scene of granny eating
the cat, on the other hand, is more laughable, both because the cat looks so
fake and because of Ta's reaction. [He says something to the effect "She's
hungry, but a little confused."]) Occasionally, there are moments of
unexpectedly subtlety, as in the scene following that in which the group lights
incense to ward off evil spirits.
Despite its
graphic and gory opening scene, Art of
the Devil ll is perhaps a little slow to start, but once the college
students are underway and the first brown-tinged flashback kicks in, the movie
definitely begins to intrigue. The time-jumping narration works surprisingly
well, and the revelations the flashbacks disclose often add an unexpected viewpoint to the events, if not a kick in the gut to the viewer's sympathies at the given
point in the movie. (More than one person in the movie has a dark secret, you
might say.) The blood-spattered scenes and shocks are often unnerving and
cringingly effective, at best both painful and nightmarish. (And not for the
squeamish, as the movie often waltzes deep into the sphere of torture porn.) And
considering how prudish the young couple Kim (Hataiwan
Ngamsukonpusit) and Por (Akarin Siwapornpitak)
are at the start of the movie — they barely manage to kiss each other's cheeks
— sex plays a huge role in the movie, which features scenes not only of the
MILF teacher getting it on with a variety of men, but also infers both a
lesbian relationship between two of the group as well as the oral rape of the
young students, both female and male, by the gym teacher. (Never graphic, but always unequivocal.) The final twist is
not necessarily to be seen in advance — as we've already mentioned, we sure didn't see it coming — but is
nevertheless extremely consequent to the black tale told.
Karma is a bitch
— and Art of the Devil ll is
bitchin'!
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