To be honest this film doesn’t have an awful lot going for it. It’s Chinese, it has too many women in it, and the order is all jumbled up so you don’t know what day it is or if someone is alive or dead or both. At least it bucks the recent trend of hilarious screamers which started with Scream, you know, those films that try to scare you and make you funny at the same time. There is no comedy here (though the wee boy in the cupboard was quite funny) and unfortunately there are no scares here either (though the wee boy in the cupboard was quite scary). It is a remake of the Chinese TV series ‘Why Does This Lady With The Hair Have An Angry Against Me, Daddy?’ There isn’t really a plot or, it’s just a pile of things happening involving a haunted house. One girl goes to the house; she thinks it’s evil, has a look around, and gets sucked into the attic by a big hairy woman. Another girl replaces the last one, goes to the house and meets a little boy who seems to be made of chalk and speaks like a cat. The big hairy woman comes out and gets her too. The rest of the film involves police, school girls, and others going to the house and getting chased from room to room by the big hairy woman. In one frankly bizarre scene, one girl who escaped the house goes home and goes to the toilet. She sits down and begins doing her business. She knows something is amiss. The scary music starts. Is she alone? Is she safe? The door creaks! Everyone jumps. Her phone rings! Everyone jumps. Plop! Everyone jumps. She looks around the house, but no-one is there so she goes back to the toilet for more. She twitches, thinking something is tickling her bum. Again. And again. She gets up and looks down the toilet (dirty girl) and suddenly- BOO! The hairy woman is in the toilet! She grabs the girl and pulls her down into the darkness. Later, when her boyfriend comes home he goes to the toilet, opens the lid only to find his dead girlfriends head poking round the U bend, one leg bent beside her ear.
As enjoyable as that sounds it really isn’t. I haven’t been able to go to the toilet sitting down since. Yes, I have to stand, facing the toilet at all times. I’m sure you can imagine the shapes I’ve had to put myself into in order to successfully deposit my mail. The rest of the film had less impact, and raised more questions than answers- why was the woman there? Why had the boy swallowed his cat? Why did everyone start crawling around the house, and why didn’t someone just chuck a few grenades down the chimney and be done with it?
Interestingly this Buffy spin off doesn’t feature Gellar at her toughest. It would have been better if she’s called in Giles, Willow, and Xander and they could have talked out the problem and then stake ass. Maybe it was all a nightmare.
Best Scene: When the Chinese woman was walking up the stairs and you could almost see her pants.
The Spac Hole 