Rahtree: Flower of the Night

After a fairly promising start, Rahtree: Flower of the Night quickly transforms into an incredibly lame horror/comedy. It’s actually quite remarkable how fast the film goes from semi-interesting to all-out disaster. The story follows a young man who convinces a seemingly unattainable girl to sleep with him, thus winning a bet with his frat buddies. Coincidentally, said girl finds herself possessed by the Devil a short time later – and what better time to get revenge than when you’ve got Satan on your side? It’s certainly not a bad setup, and director Yuthlert Sippapak initially imbues the film with a sort of slow-paced sense of dread – something he completely abandons at about the 30-minute mark. It’s at that point Rahtree: Flower of the Night becomes an all-out comedy, except there’s absolutely nothing here that’s even remotely funny. The film’s focus on clumsy, inept characters results in a series of jokes that are beyond lame; this is the sort of stuff even Three Stooges fans would have a hard time defending. And Sippapak’s predilection for ripping off better movies certainly doesn’t help matters; aside from The Exorcist, the latter half of the film owes a heck of a lot to Audition (the above picture perfectly proves that point).

* out of ****