After a long drive through the dark roads of rural farmland the tour guide confesses that he is lost and stops by a village to ask for directions. A few hours pass by and a concerned Melissa wakes Yul and they search the eerily quiet town for him. What they discover is that this is the night of the Seventh Moon when the dead are free to roam among mortals.
In this case, the dead (known as moon demons) run away looking to feed on human flesh. The only way to keep the moon demons from snacking on you is to offer a live animal sacrifice. Since Yul nor Melissa have any chickens or cats to offer they have no choice but to run through the darkness of the countryside as they try to flee the clutches of the moon demons.
Seventh Moon is a pretty decent ghoul movie. Not totally scary but it has some redeeming qualities. First up are the moon demons themselves clad in ashen skin, bloodshot eyes and really violent tempers. They rend flesh with their gnarly nails and they’re hard to put down since they’re already dead.
I definitely felt bad for Yul and Melissa because they are trapped in the middle of nowhere. If they’re lucky enough to find another person they can barely communicate with him or her since neither can speak fluent English. Yul speaks a little, though, so it comes in handy but for the most part the couple is kept in the dark literally and figuratively.
The atmosphere is fertile ground for moments of terror. The couple runs through the grass and the trees in the dark with no weapons and no police station nearby. Of course the cell phone can’t pick up a signal and even when they have access to a car it’s still futile because they don’t even know where to drive to. Since there aren’t a lot of movies about moon demons Yul and Melissa have no idea what they’re dealing with. Their desperation and bewilderment is very palpable.
The plot is based on Chinese folklore so it’s a blast to see a ghost story told through the myths of another culture.
Yes, I know about Japanese horror but thankfully there are no whitewashed girls popping out of dark corners and strangling people with their long, black tresses. I love the sense of an undying ritual; a historic tradition that has passed from generation to generation.
What’s funny is that while watching the film I was hoping it would stay frantic and wild. I liked feeling that same confusion that the characters were feeling. And I made a mental note while watching that it would really kill the mood if the writers stuck some guy in there that would just explain everything taking away all the mystery that made the movie so intriguing. Of course, that’s exactly what happens. The couple eventually end up someplace where everything is spelled out and all the answers are laid before them. What starts as a chillingly unpredictable thriller later becomes an uninspiring climax that lets out most of the scary air out of the balloon. I was grooving to the "less is more" concept and then they went and added more. Ugh.
Eduardo Sanchez directed Seventh Moon. If you check his credits your eye will probably be drawn towards The Blair Witch Project. The co-creator of that horror classic uses some of the same techniques in Seventh Moon limited light sources in the form of headlights, candles and a cell phone in one particularly tense scene.
Both the DVD and Blu Ray versions of Seventh Moon have a healthy assortment of special features. The featurettes cover the general making of the film, the creation of the moon demons, the mythology that the film was based on and more. Plus there’s a director’s commentary and trailers of other Ghost House Underground films.
