Art of the Devil II

Directors: Pasith Buranajan, Kongkiat Khomsiri, Isara Nadee, Seree Phongnithi, Yosapong Polsap, Putipong Saisikaew, Art Thamthrakul
Year Released: 2005

THE CHARGE: Doing that voodoo that you do so well.

THE EVIDENCE: Art of the Devil II is a vibrant and erudite examination of the mainstay of religious fervor in Thailand and the effects that old ritualistic practices have on modern society, carefully straddling the fine line between condemnation of the stubborn tenaciousness of an aging society and admiration for its ability to remain relevant in an increasingly technological world. 

Nah, I’m just messing with you. It’s a gory shlockfest, the second in a trilogy of Thai horror films centered around the use of ancient cult rituals and curses. The first film is a Fatal Attraction-style tale of a jilted woman seeking revenge against her lover and his entire family. And frankly, it's rather dull. But this second film is where the series veers into off-the-rails splatter territory with the intent of simply dispatching its characters in the most gruesome ways.

The movie opens with a man fishing for catfish. He accidentally impales himself on a fish hook and later that evening, barbed hooks sprout from beneath his skin all over his body. OK then.

The focus then turns to a group of 20-somethings that look like the Thai cast of Friends, off to visit an old classmate who lives in the middle of a rainforest. During their trip, we’re treated to a flashback of their time in high school when they got into all manner of hijinks like underage drinking, filming their hot teacher having an affair, and ritualistically murdering their gym coach with a voodoo curse that caused barbed fish hooks to emerge from his body after he forced several students, male and female, at gunpoint to perform oral sex on him. Ohhhh, THAT'S who that guy was in the opening scene.

We were on a break, Thai Rachel!

When they get to their classmate’s house, he’s living there with his mom and his grandma. Mom, who looks a little like Zoe Saldana, also happens to be the hot teacher who was filmed having an affair, which we learn apparently caused her husband to blow his brains out.

Geez, I didn’t fully realize how depraved and depressing this movie really was until I started recapping it here. And we’re not even at the halfway point yet.

So we’ve got this rather awkward reunion going on, but one of the girls gets a call from her uncle asking her to come home because her father is ill. Immediately after this call, everyone’s cell phones go dead because this is a horror movie.

Later that evening, the rest of the Thai Friends are treated to a yummy stew prepared by hot teacher mom. One of the young adults offers some to a nearby cat, who runs off and is promptly eaten alive by grandma. She probably wasn’t in the mood for stew. But then, neither is anyone else after they discover it contains chunks of their friend who left earlier.

Would you refuse stew from Zoe Saldana?

From there on, we discover that hot teacher mom has gone stark-raving loco after being disgraced when her affair was made public. Since then, she's become quite the expert on voodoo and carved ritual markings all over her hot teacher mom body.

For the rest of the movie, she picks off her former students in supernatural ways, including a memorable Death by Gecko scene where lizards spontaneously emerge from a guy's back. In a nice touch, we get a flashback just before each victim meets his or her end, to show just why this person actually deserved his/her fate. Suffice it to say, there are no innocent victims in this movie.

That's not to say it always makes sense, as hot teacher mom seems to have various magical abilities like the ability to teleport or take over someone else's body, whatever it takes to catch up to her victims and brutally dispatch them. Personally, I was able to just roll with it and chalk it up to voodoo hoodoo. But I admit, the death scenes look cool as hell.

In fact, for the most part, Art of the Devil II is a good-looking, well-filmed movie. It has none of the murky quality I've come to expect from low budget horror flicks trying to hide bad special effects. All scenes are clear and well-lit, and all the gore effects are nice and grisly. I don't know how the seven(!) directors credited with creating this film divided their workload, but it's clear each of them worked to their strengths.

It's also clear they were inspired by Western horror films, as the movie wraps up with a nice Saw-like montage to show that not everything that transpired was exactly at it seemed. Cliche? Yeah, a bit. But also a nice bow to wrap up a surprisingly tight package.


THE VERDICT:
Art of the Devil II is found NOT GUILTY by reason of insanity, though I felt a bit guilty being thoroughly entertained by the depravity pervading the film.