Sick Nurses 2007 Magnolia Home Entertainment   Buy It Now

Apparently the well has run dry in terms of Asian cinema. Every distributor in the United States was on the lookout for horror movies from Japan, South Korean and Hong Kong, the three big countries when it comes to horror, and this had led to some really, really bad movies getting released. Now however the focus has turned to other countries and the movies are simply getting worse. I’ve seen a few movies from Thailand in the horror category, but so far I’ve been relatively unimpressed, but one of the latest offerings shows that when it comes to horror, Thailand just doesn’t have what it takes to make a good movie or even ones that’s worth watching.

Sick Nurses is billed as a horror-comedy, something that it fails to even come close to on both accounts. Dr. Tar (Wichan Jarujinda) and his nurse staff, who all happen to live in the hospital for whatever reason, have been making some extra cash selling bodies on the black market, but one of their latest possible sales is one of their own. Tawan (Chol Wachananont) has found out that Dr. Tar, her boyfriend, has been having an affair with her sister, Nook (Chidjun Rujiphan) and after she threatens to call the police, the nurses decide to eliminate her. Before the body can be sold however, Tawan’s spirit returns, seeking vengeance on those who killed her.

Great, another tale of a wrongfully lost soul who has come back to take the lives of their killers, something I’ve never seen before in Asian cinema . . . expect for every movies I’ve seen from the region. That’s to be expected I suppose since tales of serial killers just don’t seem to be nearly as popular there as what they are here, but Sick Nurses uses just about every possibly trick that it can from a variety of movies. Again we have a ghost that is seen with long, flowing hair which covers most of the face save for one eye, something that I’m really growing tired of seeing. Apparently in Thailand, once someone dies their hair also ends up with streaks of bleach blond and the body turns black as well, but that doesn’t make the spirit unique as much as it makes it ridiculous looking.

Most of the movie is centered on the girls while Dr. Tar is out trying to meet a buyer or something like that. It actually tends to often be confusing at times because Sick Nurses wants to provide you with information via flashbacks that don’t even come across as such and often feel as though they weren’t placed into the movie in an orderly manner. Instead, it just seems like during editing the movie, the director and crew simply fast forwarded to various parts of the movie and just stuck in their footage without much thought.

The scenes with the women really plays more on trying to show as much as possible in regards to flesh, at least for what the Thailand censors would allow. If you’re going to show an Asian girl in the shower let me point out that this is not a clothing optional scenario. Seriously, I’m not sure how showing with a pair of gym shorts and a tank top can be considered anything outside of completely lame. There are many scenes that amount to nothing more than “down blouse” camera work and it’s done very poorly. There also is a pair of twin sisters who apparently are more than a little affectionate with each other but I have to stress, if you’re going to try and go the route of Asian lesbians, teasing is out of the question. Either get to the action or cut the scene completely.

Sick Nurses is also a movie that utilizes what might very well be the worst lighting ever seen in a horror film. Purples, pink, green . . . when you flood a room with one single color, this isn’t frightening, it doesn’t induce fear, but it does manage to make me not want to watch your movie. It is lighting like this that made me hate everyone else’s favorite Italian director, Dario Argento, and Sick Nurses actually takes it to suck an extreme that the movie becomes annoying to watch. At times I had to wonder if maybe I was watching the Wachowski brothers Speed Racer rather than a Thai horror movie. I’ve had to point this out in other reviews, and apparently I do once again; colored lighting doesn’t make a scary movie. Since the director’s probably only speak Thai, I can’t be certain that this is completely accurate, but allow to put it in a language that they probably can understand:

สี แสง คำย่อ ทำ สยองขวัญ ภาพ

That’s more or less a literal translation, but should they ever happen to find this review, I think the point should be extremely clear.

The movie only includes one bonus feature which is actually more than enough. It is a making of where the directors talk about their genius and the actresses who apparently don’t know any better discuss who original the movie is. Apparently movies like Ju-on 2, Ringu, and a list of other Asian films from the bigger countries aren’t known in Thailand, or maybe they haven’t seen them, or maybe they were paid some extra cash just to type the movie. Whatever the case is, I’m not sure where the originality is because I failed to find it.

Sick Nurses is beyond being a movie that should be avoided. When you have two directors working together who can’t make a decent bit of cinema, there’s problems. Piraphan Laoyont and Thodsapol Siriwiwat shouldn’t be allowed to make movies, not just for theaters and home video, but I’ll take it one step further; no wedding, no birthdays, nothing that would require them to have a video camera. This is the type of film making that makes Uwe Boll look good.

-mike-