Flow
The Coffin started out great, promised a lot of potential, scares and quite possible a lovely twist on top. Sadly, that old saying "a job well started is a job half done" does not apply here, cause I have to say, this one is a real downer. So, why did The Coffin fail so bad? Well, it is a tad bit too slow, not unusual for such productions but still, and the way it heads to the end, it's just not interesting and annoying at times. I mean, we can kinda anticipate the twist if you are used with such movies, so why drag this along? Get there and do try to act more like a horror film, show some scares, create some tension, make better use of your surround noises! Anyway, it doesn't look like they tried to hard, I think it was a great idea that was not fully exploited, resulted in a half baked scrip and put on screen with no real intention of actually making another great horror that will remain up there, with the rest!This one will seem long, boring and almost kinda useless. It should have done better. They had all the ingredients! Cheers!
Lawson
It's quite clear right from the start that the director is out to make a stylish movie, what with everything looking blue like he taped cellophane over the camera lens. I suppose artistic style can be used to create a mood of suspense for a horror movie if done right, but here it just makes everything look bleak.Fortunately, not every shot is blue, and the director does provide the usual ba-dumm moments, though none exceptional. The movie was mostly a bore, with style over substance, and the only pleasant surprise I got from it was Ananda Everingham's delightful British accent, though I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise because of his name. Karen Mok, cool as she is, didn't really bring much to the movie (though I doubt she could've).
Straph
If only because of its sheer incompetence to terrify at all.I'm not a horror fan. I never watch horror movies unless I'm forced to, because I know I'm going to be so scared I won't be able to sleep that night. Yes, I'm that easily scared. In this case, a friend was treating me to a movie, and she was a horror fan, so I went to watch this.Critics never spoil great movies because they're just so great. But they spoil the bad ones because it's so bad.The premise for the movie actually sounded good. It sounds like it's gonna be a hell of a horror movie. But the director failed to deliver. He only used the usual cheap screamers to try to "horrify" the audience. There was one good scene which actually made me hug myself, and that was when the main dude what's-his-name was in the coffin, and that girl was crawling up at him and he was having a panic attack. It's a real shame it took place at the front of the movie, because that set the standard for the rest of it... And the "rest of it" didn't match up at all. There was another scene when the main guy's girlfriend went into a cremation incinerator, and it shows the corpse inside hugging the girl while there was this sea of fire all around the coffin! You have to see the video to believe me when I say that the whole scene made me laugh outright in the (almost empty) theater.I can spoil every single bit of the scary parts for you, but I'm just too lazy to type out everything, because almost all the "scary" scenes were bad. This movie has too many tame parts and too little really disturbing ones. 3/10, because it has good picture and the male lead's acting was good. I could tell that he was doing his best to save the movie, but you can blame the director for making such an interesting premise so tame.
pinkchi
Original Asian films like Ringu have set the bar for psychological horror movies that are deeply unsettling without resorting to gore and blood. Along comes a wave of similar Asian horror movies of discontented long-haired female ghosts in white gown, only to fail in their imitation. Just like The Coffin.This movie seems novel with the inspiration from the Thai practice of lying in a coffin to change one's luck. However, it starts out slow, and never changes its pace. It's boring, lacklustre and tries way too hard to create symbolic meanings.The supposed twist at the end is nothing new, nor is the long-haired female ghost that seems too familiar.The dialogues are painful, so are the executions of them by the mediocre cast. This is what you get for casting people for their looks.