In a year featuring routine textbook, by-the-numbers ghost movies from around the world, including the South Korean Lingering or the US Grudge reboot, one more effort joins this growing legion of films. First-time director Lester Hsi offers up his take on the format with this new ghost movie, that at least boasts a found-footage component on traditional ghost movie, now available on Netflix.
Attempting to investigate a strange urban legend, news reporter Wen De Ji (JC Lin) looks into the disappearance of several students after trying to invoke the legend. The students, Meng Po-ju (Vera Yen) Te-chuan (Summer Meng), Wen-yao (Cheng Ko) Yu-ching (Ruby Zhan) and Hsien-chao (Ning Chang), who were playing a game with a local bridge that was said to be haunted by a malicious ghost who haunts the location after committing suicide there. As she gets deeper into the investigation of their accidents, the more she comes to believe that the legend of the cursed bridge is real after all, when she discovers that she may be the next in line to suffer the ghosts' wrath and must find a way to stop it.
For the most part, “The Bridge Curse” offers some enjoyable aspects. One of the films' best features is the strong background work from writers Ken Chang and Alain Hao that gives off a rather fine setup. As we're given a lot of information about the legacy of the stunt and how it turned into a student hazing stunt, the story carries on quite nicely. Starting off in-universe as the typical urban myth about a woman who died on the spot and now haunts the area after being rejected by her boyfriend, the start of the legend is a suitable small-town ghost-story that could conceivably grow into a more prominent urban legend. The beginning of the film showing off the historical background, as well as the recreation of the main prank committed by the students completes this in fine fashion.
Furthermore, the atmosphere director Hsi creates here is quite chilling at times. The fabled bridge where the action takes place is a rather creepy area, taking place in a seemingly deserted part of the campus. It's where the cobblestone construction and prominent trees surrounding it leave quite an impression. That plays a part in the resulting atmosphere featured during the attacks which are quite chilling and creepy at times, as in the ones with the ambush out at the bridge to the various encounters around the campus including the bathroom scenes and the hallways of the dorm. The intensity and ferocity of the ghostly attacks are quite fun as the being continually moves out of the darkness to attack, creating some stand-out shock scenes. Featuring a rousing finale with some nice twists and stand-out ghost action, this one is quite enjoyable at times.
“The Bridge Curse” does have some issues with it. The main problem is the films' seemingly random and arbitrary jumping back-and-forth throughout the various timelines. This happens to switch from the original incident involving the students trying the legend for themselves and encountering the ghost and the reporter investigating the incident in the present. As this creates some severe jumping around to figure out what happened, the resulting whiplash trying to keep track of everything is a hurdle to getting into the film even though it settles down considerably as it goes along. Likewise, the movie's over-reliance on standard formulaic ghost antics is a big disservice, bringing nothing new to the table. There's all the expected tropes in a creaky, slimy, scuttling pale figure leaps out of nowhere to grab victims and kills them in ways as to suggest suicide upon later discovery of the body. It's all been seen before and can come off as wholly cliched for the most part to some viewers.
Despite being overly familiar in places and not doing much new with its subject, “The Bride Curse” has more than enough moments of genuinely chilling ghost action as well as some solid turns to be a worthwhile enough watch. Those unencumbered by the flaws or Asian ghost movie fans, in general, will find plenty to like here and have the most fun with it while other viewers who aren't as tolerant of the cliches might be a little harsher towards this one.
