Theatrical Poster
A small group of medical students find themselves haunted and hunted by a vengeful ghost with an unknown connection to the female cadaver they’re dissecting for medical school. What’s the connection between cadaver and ghost and both of their connections to the head of the medical school? The surviving students must get to the bottom of the cadaver’s identity and past before they end up dead.
Is it a slasher film? Is it a supernatural film? Did it really take four people to write something so convoluted? With too many twists and turns to count, red herrings up the yin yang, utterly unlikable, uninteresting characters and some sub-par acting, I’m a bit surprised that IFC found Cadaver a worthy addition to their stable of superior genre titles. It just didn’t make a ton of sense and this is coming from someone that occasionally likes to watch an art film or two! Honestly, even if the plot and story weren’t a huge mess, which they were, and the acting didn’t feel stiff and unnatural, which it did, I couldn’t bring myself to care what happened to the characters anyhow as they were all sadly cliché and tragically one-dimensional.
Admittedly there was atmosphere galore, and some beautifully constructed sets, but nothing will save this film once you see the beautifully poetic and positively nonsensical montage of non-revelation toward the final quarter of the film. Ya know with all the wonderful films just floating around out there in limbo begging for an official stateside release, why would IFC pick something so poorly constructed, acted and executed?
Sometimes gore and ultra-violence can make up for a bad flick…too bad there was none to be had. I would have even taken a little gratuitous nudity…nadda. Cadaver wasn’t the worst Asian horror film I’ve ever seen, trust me I’ve seen some bad Asian horror, but it wasn’t a good film either. If you’re new to Asian horror cinema and you’re looking for a good jump-off point, I’d recommend looking elsewhere; this will just confuse you and piss you off. Veterans of Asian horror, I’d hate to see you purchase this so if you must see this, be sure to just rent.
