Phobia 2 (2009)

Five tale anthology from Thailand, a sequel to the hit film 4bia (2007)

***/*****



I thought I would get in a Thai anthology highly regarded, a sequel to the popular hit, 4bia from 2007.

Novice
It opens with a compelling tale of a troubled youth left at a wilderness monastery by his concerned mother, worried about his welfare. He had committed a series of rock throwing mischief while riding on a motorcycle, aimed at motorists passing. One such motorist, through an ironic twist of horrible fate, happens to be Pey's father! So Pey debates leaving but a monk, one an elder while another  closer to the kid's age, attempts to dissuade such a decision. While this occurs during the period of the "new moon" and features a peculiar spiritual ritual involving appeasing a particular "ghost giant" by leaving food for it, I think it's message of karma visiting itself upon the guilty really works to the tale's benefit. I think the kid being so volatile and having this chip on his shoulder breeds contempt by the audience for he even eats from the food left for the spirit without even giving any consequences a second thought. When told of this ritual, he prided away respect for the Buddhist belief, only when actually confronted by the ghost realizing his error. This tale includes a nasty head wound due to stones thrown at a victim's face acknowledging that karma's a bitch. The snake/lizard scene is bizarre. ***/*****

Ward
A teenager wrecks his legs while goofing off, spending the night in a hospital. He reluctantly adheres to the hospital in having him share a room with a dying elderly patient on life support. What he couldn't possibly prepare for is the desperate spirit of the man wanting to seemingly harm him. Attempts to strangle or subdue him are somewhat thwarted as Arthit is able to get nurses and staff into the room when attacked. After an injection puts him to sleep, he once again awakens to find the old man's spirit standing over him, trying to bleed in his face and mouth. The next day the hospital staff treats him with reverence and respect as Arthit appears quite different in his tone and appearance. I thought it was a decent second tale which certainly stacks the deck against the young man who has no prayer considering he would have to convince others he is being attacked by an invalid unconscious in the bed next him. The vulnerable position he is in with the casted legs also places him in a rotten predicament. The power of not wanting to let go of this life by trying to steal someone else's body makes for quite the unusual story of peril. **1/2/*****

Backpackers
Yet another zombie story, this one happening to drug mules turning thanks to a product injested. Father and son transporters pickup teenage backpackers and all four endure hardship, terror and death as a result of the aforementioned drug mules who pursue them in bloodthirsty fashion. Come to find out, the father and son were trafficking the mules and the backpackers get unfortunately caught up in the deteriorating situation. A little boy comes between the last survivors, ending everything badly. Nothing new. This is another one of those "the guilty reap what they sew while innocents are casualties of their criminality" themed stories. **/*****

Salvage
The fourth tale is a real doozy. How about if the past deaths of victims who perished in terrible ways relive them to a saleswoman who has their cars (auto deaths were how the victims died) repaired and repainted, sold to new clients for a bargain price?!?! Not only that but her son is on the loose somewhere and she can't find him due to fits with the ghosts of dead motorists! The depressing ending leaves the purposeful bad taste and the relived deaths are rightfully shocking (especially the burning body screaming and a woman's stomach splitting open as she agonizes). ***/*****

In the End
The final tale is a playful stab at the onryu genre and takes some digs at movie making. A movie shoot is disrupted when their actress portraying a spectre gets sick while in the makeup, wearing the eerie white eye contacts, is taken to the hospital. The cameraman is told by an attending physician that the actress died, yet she returns to the set ready to continue! Members of the crew run around scared, but believing she just wants to finish the film before passing they decide to continue on! The director is clueless and his star diva actress overacts pitifully while members of the crew wince, wondering how she has made it so far. The twist involving the actress that is supposed to be dead is played to the hilt and she favors similarly to the onryu of the past so identifiable to J-horror and K-horror of the last twenty years. The plot goes bananas when three of the four crew members believes that the fourth is another spectre, bleeding from the head as the result of a van crash. When another sleepy motorist emerges, what they thought they had escaped might meet them literally head on. ***/*****

No connecting framework for the stories here. This is just a series of films connected only by fades to black. Not bad an anthology overall. Nothing all that extraordinary but fun nonetheless.