Forbidden Siren is a mixed bag of a movie. Yes, it's another video game movie. But unlike House of the Dead, this one is capable of holding your attention and is sufficiently frightening.
The story follows a young woman, named Yuki, who has moved to the island of Yame with her father and little brother. From the get-go, things on the island don't seem right. The villagers are strange and unfriendly. Throughout the movie, Yuki seems to have a hard time keeping up with her wandering little brother Hideo, and has strange encounters with a woman in red. And then she is given an ominous warning: never go outside when the siren wails.
It's a good premise for a horror/thriller movie. And I must admit that conceptually this film is strong; a feature which complements the awesome directing. That's why it's a shame that Forbidden Siren's ending is so poor. This movie excels in almost every area and would have been a great Asian horror if not for the ending. I won't spoil anything, but suffice to say that if someone tried to submit a story with a trick ending, like we see in Forbidden Siren, to any major magazine, they would not be published.
The ending of any story is crucial and they teach you not to write trick endings because they are deceptive and ultimately let your audience down. Which is what we observe happening in Forbidden Siren. We are built up from the very beginning to believe that something memorable and shocking is coming at the end, then it's just a big let down.
I was tempted to give this movie a 5 instead of a 6; however I was impressed by the good scares and the originality of the plot (even if they could have gone in SO many interesting directions with it.) These days it isn't often that you find a good Asian horror film that doesn't center around a "vengeful ghost" picking off a small group of young adults. So Forbidden Siren gets a 6 out of 10. Watch it and enjoy the creative scares and smart direction, then when you get to the climax turn it off and make up your own ending. Trust me, you can't do any worse than they did.
