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It probably wasn’t intentional, but I think that we’re seeing more and more than the creative and collective talent of both writers and director’s is starting to run out of steam. If they aren’t busy trying to clone another popular film, they are trying to once again weave terror out of anything and everything that could be cursed or have a ghost. The weaving however takes a different form, and the term “hair raising” definitely does not apply. Gabal, known to us here in the West as The Wig, is the initial horror offering from writer/director Shin-yeon Won, and apparently when they were handing out ideas for cursed items, he missed out and showed up at the end of the lottery. The Wig is about; well . . . if you didn’t already figure it out, a wig, but of course it’s cursed. Su-Hyeon (Min-seo Chae) is a leukemia patient who has just been given the clearance to leave the hospital, and as a gift her sister Ji-hyeon (Seon Yu) has bought her a wig to make up for her hair loss, but the sister has no idea the horrible curse that comes with wanting a head of beautiful hair . . . . It requires constant care and maintenance, and the wrong type of shampoo and conditioner can leave hair damaged and lifeless . . . . . Wait, I think that’s a Pantene commercial, not the plot of The Wig. Su-Hyeon at first wants nothing to do with the wig, but she quickly realizes that maybe looking like Lt. Ilia or Professor Xavier isn’t going to win her any boyfriends. So, the wig is adorned and she’s soon very attached to it. However, her personality begins to slowly change and she’s also being plagued with periodic episodes of what the doctor’s think is hallucinations where she sees bizarre and graphic deaths. She also seems to have developed an infatuation with Gi-seok (Mun Su), her sister’s boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, but there’s a mysterious set of circumstances that ties the new hair (no pun intended) with her sisters ex, and it’s more than just lather, rinse, repeat. Actually, that idea; lather, rinse, repeat, could be applied to the Asian horror industry these days. If you think that it’s a travesty that American movie makers are busy “remaking” every horror film from the region they possibly can, the director’s there are busy trying to take ideas from one another at the drop of a bamboo hat. The Wig tries to introduce the usual brand of tragedy within the first portion of the film The sister have lost their parents year prior in a car accident and then sometime later, Ji-hyeon was also involved in a car crash which cost her the use of her vocal chords. Now she can only speak in quite squeaks, though apparently they have some of the best plastic surgeons in the world living in Korean because there are no scars to be seen at all. To top it off, Su-Hyeon has leukemia and has somewhat accepted the idea that she’s dying, and Gi-seok has experienced tragedy himself, though we don’t learn that until much later in the film. On occasion, you’ll see moments with “ghost hair,” that crawling, creeping, attacking variety that has been seen in many Asian films, though Ju-On 2 came to mind immediately. Shin-yeon Won also seems to enjoy including music that has not a mysterious or sinister feeling, but more of a classical style, not unlike what you might hear in another Korean director’s movies, and those would be the works of Park Chan-wook. The “possession” idea and another soul trying to take over the body of the living, and hopefully that didn’t ruin things for you, is again not uncommon, and one that I can connect with another Korean film with a ridiculously cursed item; The Phone. The Wig tries to play off the mystery with a few moment of gore and some extremely telegraphed scenes that are meant to make you jump, but I think that would only work if you’ve seen a handful of movies. Sinister ghost hair creeping from mouths or toilets doesn’t make for a frightfest. Shin-yeon Won might have a fairly decent visual approach, but he often kills this with sequences that could be shorter and tends to often make them too melodramatic without much use of horror, terror, or tension. Plus, the use of fake blood that seems more like something you’d pick up at a theater supply store as opposed to just making it the old fashioned way makes the movie laughable at times, and almost sad in others. Those who love Asian cinema regardless might want to be forewarned that The Wig is like quite a few other releases that are available, not in terms of content, but it is available only in Korean. If reading isn’t for you, this isn’t going to be your type of movie, but for the rest of us, it’s just another Asian horror outing with little in the way of redeeming qualities. There are a few bonus features though, three actually, that will take you behind the scenes. Shin-yeon Won comes across as having a vision, but it also very easy to tell that he’s a relative novice when he talks about what he’s trying to do differently that has been “done differently” more than a time or two. Discovering that Seon Yu actually did shave her head for the role though is something that I have some respect for, but not enough that I have a deeper appreciation for the movie. So, cursed phones, cursed lockers, apartments with sinister curses, and now wigs. Here I was under the belief that the true curse of hair was seen in the 80’s with the seemingly unending floor of glam metal bands, but I guess I stand corrected. I’d be under the thought that next we’d see a cursed video game system, but that already exists in the real world, for Asian, with the dreaded “Chintendo” Vii (seriously, Google it for some youtube links and comedy.) The Wig is a tangled, knotted mess that should have been cut down to the roots and grown again with a new style because this one is getting far too old to be considered attractive. -mike-
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