Re-Cycle

I guess it's time for me to do another Asian horror movie.  Today's winner comes courtesy of Taiwan and a very vivid imagination.  Re-Cycle is a psychological horror/thriller/fantasy movie about a writer who gets sucked into a world of abandoned ideas by one of her own abandoned characters.  Some very interesting ideas are going on in this movie because it shows an interesting idea of the afterlife: as long as we remember our loved ones they live through us, but once we forget them they go to the Re-Cycle.  The movie has big ideas and it mostly succeeds in expressing them.

Re-Cycle has a decent, albeit slightly slow, opening with a few scares and a few character points.  Once the main character (who's name I have forgotten since so many of those Taiwanese names are so similar) gets pulled in the world of abandoned ideas though things get interesting.  The scares continue for a bit into the Re-Cycle (which is the world) but they eventually fade away into a darkly toned fantasy story, almost like Alice in Wonderland with aborted fetus's.  Many of the locales in the Re-Cycle are well done but everything has a dark, drab tone that downplays a lot of the beauty.  In fact that drab tone was the worst part of the movie.

Once the movie hits its stride it never feels like it because things never brighten up.  I understand that it's supposed to be a horror movie, but it isn't scary at that point and showing us a grassy hill isn't nearly as calming with a boring grayish-green grass as it would be with pretty, vibrant grass.  Many of the locales are just boring because of it, the decay which is intentionally there doesn't add to the movie viscerally and because of that the exploration of the fantasy environments is pretty boring and seems to drag on.  It is worth noting however that the movie is still a success, the ending is fantastic and is something you won't see coming but totally worth the ride.  Overall give this one a watch, and stick it out through the drab.

7.5/10