Bloodtype Online

        From one of the Pang Brothers, Oxide Pang (The Eye) is this 2004 mixed bag of a character study about a girl who has a sudden obsession with photographing death, and a story that turns into a “torture” movie. The two main characters are lesbian lovers having relationship problems due to Jiney’s new morbid fascination with making stills out of ones demise. It’s funny that the two main characters that play lovers are sisters in real life.  They don’t make out or anything so if your thing is incest you may be disappointed.

        The movie is filled with back story and subplots. First of all Jiney was raped by a cousin and some friends when she was a youth. Her mother didn’t believe her story back then and that still hurts Jiney. Maybe this is why she is taking pictures of the final moments of a human life. Her painful past might be she is going mad out of nowhere. Her girlfriend witnesses a lot of Jiney’s bizarre behavior and deals with it quite well through out the story. Visually the movie has some extraordinary scenes especially when Jiney is having morbid daydreams. My favorite example is when she is painting a nude portrait of a class mate and imagines the girl with blood running from head to toe. She paints it as the class is staring at the art and the actually seems impressed or maybe they are all just shocked. Also there is a cool scene with bloody photos due to Jiney’s hallucinations. The darkroom scenes are perfect for a horror film with the red and dark lighting that enhances the disturbing subject matter of the film

         She goes around taking pictures of chickens being killed. The actress is sure hot by the way and makes me question if I would date a weird ass girl that’s into that shit. She takes photos of birds and dogs and you've got to wonder if eventually she’ll go off on a fellow human being. She eventually meets a guy that she pours red paint over while screaming “You want to make love to me!” , “You want to abuse me”. Again  Jiney hates men!

          The film started out with Jiney witnessing a car crash and coincidently this movie reminds me of director David Cronenberg’s 1997 film “Crash” about people who get off sexually when they watch car crashes. “Ab-normal Beauty" is a similar but original character study that turns into a more conventional film and if not for what it turned into it may not be considered a horror film. I assure you the beginning of this film is entirely more interesting than the final parts of this film. However I do feel that the movie was not too predictable and was well made by Oxide Pang. Jiney’s character went through a lot, got better and goes through more. Everything ties together in this film with plenty of good characters. I love a lot of films like “Hostel” and “Saw” and this movie does eventually go that route. This movie didn’t copy of the torture trend because it came out in 2004. The beginning is very original and the end is not so original but all of it could happen. With how much they threw in this film it ultimately worked and I was never bored because of cinematography, quality score and sudden plot switch. One of my favorite type of horror films to watch. I love watching a character go through a lot and anticipate what is up next for them. Rent this movie no matter what and buy it if you’re die hard Asian cinema fan because I know for a fact that 75% of the film is unique and entertaining as well.

Rating - ***

-Russell Rutter