Search - The Wig (Unrated) on DVD

Bad Hair Day

Judith S. Inouye | north bend, oregon | 06/27/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This Korean movie tries to answer the pressing question: can someone make a horror movie out of a wig? The answer depends on what you mean by "horror." I was horrified at the end to realize I had purchased this dud on line from Amazon.
The main characters are two sisters, one dying from leukemia (who has lost her hair to chemotherapy) and the other suffering from a failed marriage. The suffering sibling gives her sister a wig. When the dying woman puts it on, she immediately loses the 10:00 shadows under the eyes, her posture improves, and she gets surges of energy. Unfortunately, during one of these energy surges she tries to seduce her soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law, to the horror (again that word) of her suffering sister.
Meanwhile strange things are happening. The wig, for instance, keeps falling off its hanger onto the floor. This may be because 1) it is too heavy for the hanger, or 2) it actually prefers the floor. The answer is 2), for reasons explained at the end of the movie.
One key sequence encapsulates some of the problems with this film. A friend of the two girls borrows the wig, and the next day she and her husband turn up dead. The wig magically returns to its owner. I had to watch this sequence again, because I did not know who was who. In fact, this is a problem during the key revelation flashback, when the origin of the wig and its relationship to the main characters is revealed. I was wondering, "Who?" "What?" "Why?" And who is doing what to whom? A lot of these characters look alike.
The really "scary" scene at the climax shows the hair climbing up a flight of stairs. This is reminiscent of the Terminator, when the mutilated machine crawls across the floor and up some steps to terminate Sarah Connors. In that movie the effect was to show how implacable the machine was. In this movie it was laughable. We now discover that the wig really likes to be on the ground, moving around like a "skink." (Don't look this one up in Webster's: a "skink" is a long-haired legless animal that crawls up stairs in Asian horror movies.)
The penultimate scene showing one of the sisters holding the dead body of her sibling goes on and on and on, as if repetition will make it seem more pathetic. Whether or not it works depends on what you mean by "pathetic."
By this time the characters and you, the viewer, will all have had a Bad Hair Day."

Very Good Movie

L. C. Tomas | Panama, Panama | 12/22/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's a very good movie, and one I highly recommend to all, if you like Asian horror, especially K-horror. It certainly has some pretty creepy moments, let me tell you - worth a watch. It isn't as silly as its premise might at first seem."