One of the few cinematic exports from Thailand to recently hit North America that isn't somehow affiliated with the Pang Brothers or Tony Jaa, Art Of The Devil is a decent supernatural thriller that regurgitates a lot of the clichés now associated with Asian horror, albeit with a uniquely Thai perspective.

Boom is a gorgeous young woman who meets the acquaintance of a rich businessman at a night club one night. One thing leads to another and he takes her home for a night of carnal fun. Two months later and she tells him that he's pregnant, and that she's going to need him to help her out financially. He buys her off with a sizeable amount of cash but somehow manages to assume that this gives him the right to allow his pals to gang rape her on the beach one night while he videotapes it all. It's not long before he winds up dead, and six months later his common law wife and the kids that he had with her move into his fancy waterfront house and inherit all of his wealth, leaving Boom without a penny and more than a little ticked about that.

As we get to know the new family that has moved into the house, we find out that the older son is dating a pretty woman who looks strangely familiar. Shortly after we realize that yeah, he's dating daddy's mistress and plans to marry her. Unfortunately for everyone in the family, people start winding up dead from increasingly bizarre events – one boy is smothered in eels, the other pukes up razor blades during a Buddhist ceremony. A reporter on the scene sees some connections to past events that tie Boom into all of this, and his expertise in the supernatural gives him the knowledge he needs to sort it all out but will he be able to stop Boom's voodoo style revenge from killing everyone off before it's too late or will he too become a victim of the art of the devil? And what's with the weird albino kid hanging out upstairs and making weird drawings with the youngest son in the family?

Not particularly inventive in its storytelling methods, the film starts off with a scene that takes place in the later part of the story which in turn removes a lot of the suspense from the film as we already know who the killer is. With that in mind, some of the voodoo murders and practices that we get a chance to check out as the plot unfolds are pretty inventive and there are enough ugly murders in the last half of the movie to keep things interesting and a little unsettling. Yes, there are definitely times where the movie borrows from other horror movies to come from the east, and the ghostly little kid running around upstairs definitely feels like something out of Ring or the Ju-On series albeit with a bleached out complexion and hair-do, but the Thai setting and cultural aspects of the story do serve to differentiate it from the herd just enough that it works.

In terms of the acting, no one really stands out as giving an exceptionally good performance but all involved do fine with the material and everyone is believable enough in rather unbelievable settings that we're able to accept that these people are going through what they're going through. The cinematography is quite good and the camera makes sure that we see everything we need to when Boom's victims finally meet their maker. It takes us a little while to get there but the story builds nicely to a pretty intense crescendo which relieves some of the predictability a little bit.

In the end, there are definitely better horror movies out there but there are also a lot worse as well and this one does deliver enough gore and enough suspense in a few scenes that despite the flaws that the script slaps us outside the head with it is worth a look for those who appreciate horror done Asian style.

Video:

Media Blasters presents Art Of The Devil in a decent but far from perfect 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that does a pretty nice job of capturing the mood and atmosphere of the film. While the image does have its flaws (there are a few scenes with some mild motion blurring and a few others that have a bit more print damage than you might expect to see on a film this recent – and once again, the image has not been flagged for progressive scan playback) it is definitely acceptable. Edge enhancement is only present in a couple of scenes and there are no issues with mpeg compression artifacts. The picture has a pretty nice level of foreground and background detail in it and skin tones look lifelike. Color reproduction is decent but at times the image looks a little on the flat side and the greens look a little too pale (though this could be an artistic choice).