13 Beloved

imdb

13 Beloved, a Thai suspense thriller explores the extent people would go for money. The (old) revelation it expounds on is, humans are ultimately evil and we're everyday hypocrites living under multiple facades.

Name some horror movies that are associated with numbers: 28 days later, the number 23, what else? The message is, we're suspicious and unabashedly love it. Somewhat like 'the number 23', 13 Beloved spots frequent appearance of the number to heighten the thrill but the coincidences aren't so ingenious, rather kindergarten in fact. The 13 stepping stones to the gold mine starts with a buzzing fly. I liked the reality noir but was soon distracted as the so called increasing challenges waned now and then. SPOILER warning beeps > Can't the script guy think of anything better than eating shit and gutting a cow? Are you so hopelessly uncreative? It's cheap and it's gross.

That was a big minus but my anticipation had its head up when at level 8(or 9?), we met the old woman who appeared in the 'prelude', suggesting a grand hidden scheme that would make the story whole and remarkable. It did complete the picture as the mysterious mastermind (no guessing needed) preached the audience how cyber games are reality, vice versa. I was silently moaning 'c'mon, not this old shit again', only to be irreversibly disappointed on hearing the line 'I didn't kill him. The world killed him.' Right.

The question is, is it an obligation for horror movies to carry upright moral messages? It's already hard to fit a 'meaning' in a stark, horror setup. I'd rather go for pure horror than a contrived blend like this.

I'm not saying the movie should be trashed without a blink. The idea is interesting and cameraman did a great job.

The cast. I'm sure I'm not the only one who pops up with the big question+exclamation mark 5min into the movie 'Is this guy Thai?!' He's not, at least <50% Thai genetically. The name's Alexander Rendel whose performance deserves praise. He also appeared in Tesseract starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Seems this Alex guy has a fervor for horror and I doubt he'd have any international big screen break through.