Ngôi nhà trong hem (2012)

Ngôi nhà trong hem: Directed by Le-Van Kiet. With Veronica Ngo, Son Bao Tran, Van Hai Bui. Until they lose their baby to a miscarriage, a young couple were happily settling into their new life in their spacious home. After the tragedy, Thao is inconsolable and won’t let her baby’s body leave the house. Normal life eludes her as terrifying visions undermine her sanity. Her husband, Thanh, experiences strange phenomena around their home and when his wife turns on him, he must race to uncover the secrets of the house in the alley before they lose their sanity and their lives.

“When they lose their baby in a miscarriage, a young couple decide to move and begin happily settling into their new life in their spacious home, but when she begins to act like thereu0026#39;s something wrong with her and he has several weird encounters they suspect something is wrong with the house and must try to get away alive.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFor the most part, this one is a highly enjoyable ghost story. A lot of what really works well here is due to the story, which takes plenty of cues from the genreu0026#39;s past to tell a creepy tale about parental trauma and guilt. Quickly moving away from the traumatic setup about the stillborn birth and her fractured mindset at losing her child, the first-half where sheu0026#39;s quiet and reserved trying to move past it despite his sincere best attempts to help her as well as focus back on work lays an intriguing groundwork for later. With the clear and obvious aspect that sheu0026#39;s not moved on with the way she acts around the now-abandoned nursery, dealing with her mother or their date-night creating a strain on top of his work-life, it all creates the prototypical perfect storm of loss and grief that makes one an obvious target for supernatural activity. As this occurs alongside the other storyline about his job creating undue stress on the both of them, a finely-tuned psychological mindset is employed that potentially enhances or undermines everything around them as thereu0026#39;s enough at play here that the incidents around their house are justifiably arguable as to whether theyu0026#39;re genuine supernatural hauntings or the result of a fractured mental state. When the film moves away from this psychological setup, the scares created are quite impressive. Initially starting small with eerie ethereal children laughing heard nearby or hallucinations of blood seeping from unnatural objects, the change into much larger and more impressive scares as they spend more time in the house begins gradually increasing which makes for a fun time. Seeing the ghost of a baby pop-up in the middle of the bed between them is inordinately chilling, much like the constant accidents he has that are caused by the belief that someone is in the house with them and being startled to the point of injury. The idea that sheu0026#39;s become unhinged with the attempted burning of the nursery or standing outside in the rain while nude offers up even more clues that something isnu0026#39;t right, and the lead-in to the full reveal of whatu0026#39;s been going on in the house leads to some incredibly thrilling scenes here. The final race to finish off the threat facing them is quite suspenseful, utilizing some creepy imagery with the ghost kids and several well-timed jump-scares to deliver a harrowing sequence that ends the film on a high note. Overall, these aspects make the film quite fun and enjoyable. There are a few problems with this one. Itu0026#39;s biggest issue is the rather slow-burn approach that doesnu0026#39;t provide the swiftest pacing for a genre film, taking a more measured approach to the storyline that can make the film feel like a drag at points. As the first half tends to focus more on setting up their relationship problems as well as his work struggles involving the pushy mother and well-meaning brother, thereu0026#39;s not a lot of genuine thrills here beyond a few sporadic encounters that are too brief to generate anything more than minor thrills. As the work-struggles storyline is the one that goes nowhere with him being unable to come to terms with being there while wanting to stay with her to the disappointment of his mother, it serves as a plot-point increasing his stress without much else. Therefore, these scenes are quite problematic stalling the pacing to get them out of the way instead of doing something more thrilling or suspenseful. The other issue here is a somewhat halfhearted finale explanation for everything thatu0026#39;s going on, using a single conversation as a coda at the end of the film to tell whatu0026#39;s going on and this makes it feel like a copout way of offering a reason for the hauntings. Beyond these factors, thereu0026#39;s not much wrong here.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eRated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.”