Teketeke (2009)

I am a huge fan of horror stories, particularly urban legends. Japanese urban legends tend to be especially creepy and enjoyable so I always try to watch anything based on them. Teke Teke is a well known legend but sadly something got lost in the translation to screen. The budget is obviously small with mediocre film quality and acceptable to bad acting. The creature (teke teke) could have been scary but it moves at such a hyper speed that it appears more comical than scary. The story was a bit messy and confusing. Overall, watch this if you are interested in the legend and are a horror fan but everyone else can skip it.

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I really love to watch a good urban legend based horror movie. Lights Out. Kuchisake-onna. Teke-Teke.

Or at least, I expected Teke-Teke to be somewhat good. The story of a woman's torso going around Japan cutting people in half, and two desperate girls trying to break a curse. It sounds like quite a lot of Asian / Japanese horror movies, but this one has potential. It was based off of one of the most famous Japanese urban legends of all time! This legend was so famous, people use to avoid train stations if they could go with other people after dark. It held districts in fear.

And that fear was exactly what I was looking for within this movie. Maybe it's my own fault for holding so many expectations, many of which were high – but this really didn't do it for me at all.

The acting was relatively well done in most moments when needed, but there were many times it just didn't come through. The characters do something insufferable that sometimes leads to death and you're just left staring at the screen like "Were you born naturally stupid or did you have sections of your brain removed?"
That's part of this that I'm pretty sure I lost IQ points watching. It's generic horror movie dumbness but it seemed even more rampant throughout this and I assume that's down to the characters not being believable as people.

The CGI was painfully to watch, especially as Teke-Teke starts jumping around. It's meant to be tense scenes that have you sat on the edge of your seat, but you just sit there laughing at how purely ridiculous it looks. Now props to the editors and everyone, this did come out in 2009 when CGI wasn't as great – but it was still a degree better than it was in the film and it seriously could have been better.

It's been months since I saw this movie and I can still write a coherent review on how bad it actually was, that's alarming.

Overall, if you're here to watch something scary, give Teke-Teke a skip. However if you're here to watch something comedy, give Teke-Teke a try. They were in the ballpark with this movie, but in the complete wrong state. Comedic in general, not as horrifying and scary as you would think and a bit of a let down to the original urban legend.

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