A neo-noir mystery wrapped in a detective story pretending to be a horror film, Spider Forest is a little bit of everything but not enough of anything to be as excellent as I had hoped. It starts out incredibly strong but meanders in the middle trying to be as confusing as possible before coming to an interesting, if not entirely satisfying, ending.
The film begins with Kang Min (Woo-seong Kam) stumbling across a grisly murder in a small cabin in the middle of the woods. A man is gruesomely lying on the floor having been hacked to death, and we see every bloody detail. Unlike most cop shows where dead men have small blood stains on their shirt but otherwise look perfectly fine, the camera here shows that murder is a disgusting, dirty thing, expulsing blood and guts in a nasty mess.
As Kang Min walks further into the home he sees his girlfriend lying on the bed; beaten and battered herself, she can only say something about spiders and that she is scared before finally succumbing to death. But what’s this? The killer is still in the house and Kang Min chases him outside into the forest. Unfortunately the killer is too quick for him and backtracks to beat Kang Min with a club.
Left for dead, Kang Min stumbles up and wanders for help on a lone stretch of highway. A car, not seeing him, hits him straight on and again he is left for dead. He is eventually found and taken to the hospital.
In a wonderful opening scene for Detective Choi (Jang Hyeon-seong), we see him and several other cops staging a raid on a gang resting inside an apartment. As the men give a three count before busting in, Choi’s cellular phone rings and ruins the surprise. With nothing to do but break down the door, the cops charge in and beat the villains to a bloody pulp. Then, while sitting on top of one bad guy, Choi answers his still ringing phone.
Article comments