Now, if you've got any Asian film knowledge in you, odds are you can probably read that opening and imagine this film or, at the very lest, form a pretty accurate guesstimation of wether or not this will be worth a damn. While I'm all for horror and I'm all for comedy, Terror Taxi looked silly, cheap, and not even close to being the greatest thing I've seen. I got what I expected.

Gilnam is a young, proud cabbie who has recently bought his own cab, wants to launch a website that offers his vast driving knowledge, and plans to propose to his longtime girlfriend Yoojung. Wouldn't you know it, on the night he's going to propose, he makes the fatal blunder of steering off the highway overpass and sends himself into the afterlife. 49 days later his spirit returns. Now sometimes showing a rotting face and driving around in a cab that has an engine straight from Naked Lunch, he's given a little guidance by two other ghost cabbies ('golf guy' and 'transsexual' is what I call them) and a girl who was the victim of a hit and run.

So, Gilnam is introduced to this world of phantom cabs that run on blood (human blood being the equivalent of high octane) and an afterlife catering gas station where parties are held with the house band, Mr. Porno Band. He tries to go and reconcile with his girlfriend but greater dangers lurk on the horizon. A notorious ghost cabbie, who goes by the moniker of Mantis, has his eyes set on possessing Gilnam's irresponsible buddy Byungsoo and getting his ethereal mitts on Gilnam's girl.

While I was praying to the heavens that Terror Taxi would have all the trasportory shenanigans of tv's Taxi combined with the oddball horror and gore of Braindead, I didn't really get much of either. Oh, they tried. It falls into the category of lame concept movies where someone had a vague spark to make a horror comedy with ghost cab drivers and very weakly fleshed the rest out. The scripting manages the paradoxical double whammy of being both predictable and nonsensical. The acting is all okay for this sort of affair, except for the limp lead actor, who gets outperformed by the little girl. Nothing particularly imaginative about the directing. Fx runs the gamut from passable CGI to passable practical fx.

The DVD: Media Blasters

Picture: Well, don't let that 'Full Screen' description on the back of the case fool you. Apparently, not knowing what they've got, Media Blasters offers a non-anamorphic widescreen print of Terror Taxi. While it clearly was a very low budget affair, the amount of grain and contrast issues had me wondering if it was a made-for-tv film or a digital feature. The behind the scenes extra does show them using film cameras of some sort, so it is just generally film crappy. Media Blasters probably did the best with what they were given, but it isn't the greatest source or the greatest production. It has an ugly yellow/green tone that was probably a "spooky" hue choice by the cinematographer. Generally washed out and weak.

Sound: Dolby digital 2.0 Stereo, Korean language with optional English subtitles. Standard stuff. Metal soundtrack. Clear dialogue, score, and fx; solid but not the most dynamic aural presentation.

Extras: Making of featurette (28:43). Begins with some behind the scenes footage of various (mainly stunt) sequences and ends with some cast interviewing. — Trailers, though one for the film isn't among them.

Conclusion: How can I begrudge it? The Pope said it best, it is what it is. The makers of Terror Taxi were clearly aiming to be silly and b-grade, so complaining that it was lowbrow would be like griping that Yor: the Hunter from the Future was cheesy. I just wished they aimed a little higher and made it funnier, more horrific, and involving. Hell, if you are the kind of film fan that likes to take a chance and looks at a film cover and says, "That looks horrible. I have to see if it is."- then go for it.