Review by Nia Edwards-Behi
I must confess, firstly, that I am not remotely familiar with the work of David Blyth, though he seems to be something of a cult filmmaker, for films such as Angel Mine (1978) and Death Warmed Over (1984). Sadly, this latest film hasn’t made me want to rush out and explore his prior work, as overall Ghost Bride comes across not much better than an unsuccessful debut film.
Jason (Yoson An) is the son of Chinese immigrants to New Zealand, and his sick mother (Catheryn Wu) wants him to marry traditionally, and arranges for him to visit a mystical matchmaker, Madam Yin (Geeling Ng), who has picked out Mai Ling (Fiona Feng) to be his betrothed. Little does Jason’s mother realise, though, that he has been seeing local girl Skye (Rebekah Palmer) for a year, and when he proposes to her and breaks the news to his mother, the truth about Mai Ling becomes clear, and the lines between living and dead blur.
There is so much squandered potential in this film. Stories about generational culture clashes are hardly ground-breaking, but I was looking forward to what could have been a really interesting exploration of Chinese heritage, modern New Zealand, gender politics, the changing roles of women…but no, I got none of that. Sadly, what remains isn’t strong enough to stand on its own, superficial, feet, either. The cultural and generational aspects of the film just aren’t interesting, and the supernatural and horrific elements of the film just aren’t impressive or frightening. It’s unfortunate that, bar one sequence in particular, this film doesn’t veer anywhere close to so-bad-its-good territory either.
What is that sequence? Well, it’s a gloriously embarrassing scene in which Jason and Skye are at a bar, while generic, soundtrack ‘club’ music plays in the background. Suddenly, the music changes to slightly different generic soundtrack ‘club’ music, and Skye declares ‘I love this song!’, gets up, and does the whitest white girl dancing ever committed to film, by herself, while Jason looks on adoringly. The scene is so terrible that it elicited genuine belly laughs from me, which is much more than can be said for the rest of this dull, wasted opportunity of a film.
Overall, the direction of the film is relatively competent, though the film’s low budget shows in the lack of extras in certain scenes (such as the aforementioned club scene). Evidence of a low-budget isn’t not what makes this film so bad though, instead it’s the laziness with which the story and characters have been approached. It became evident within about five minutes of watching the film that it wasn’t made by a Chinese person, with lazy, ‘exotic’ depictions of Chinese tradition found both in the script and in set dressing. The characters in the film are so one-dimensional that they don’t even manage to be particularly unlikeable, they are simply devoid of anything to encourage engagement with them. I lost count of how many times Skye told Jason ‘you’re so sweet!’ whenever he said or did something mildly nice, making their relationship laughable very early on. Poor Skye probably gets the worst deal in the film, what with the embarrassing dancing, clunky dialogue (apropos nothing, she tells Jason “Love sets everyone free. You just have to believe”), and – bonus! – a gratuitous shower scene.
There’s a small flourish of a scene near the end of the film, indicative that the it could at least have been entertainingly horrific had it just tried a little harder, but sadly as it is, it just seems redundant and stupid. Ultimately, Ghost Bride, were it indeed someone’s debut film, would not have been a better film, but it would have been a lot easier to be a bit more sympathetic about its many faults. Instead coming from a seasoned filmmaker, it’s just insultingly lazy.
Ghost Bride is out on VOD and DVD in the US from 4th November, via Midnight Releasing.