Bestseller (2010)


REVIEWER RATING: 
6/10

Bestseller is a new South Korean thriller that borrows from a couple notable genre flicks, but also blends a couple sub-genres together and delivers a decent little murder mystery. Not the most original of flicks, the movie does give a couple chills in the beginning and an out've-nowhere twist half way that sets the mark for a change of pace and story.

The film focuses on an author, whose work over 20 years has given her several bestsellers. That is, until recently when it was discovered that her latest bestseller is the work of plagiarism. This obviously causes an immediate decline of her book sales and career. We skip a couple years and her editor convinces the author to rent out an old villa in a small town that's said to offer a lot of inspiration for many past authors and will hopefully help her move passed her writing stump.

Naturally, the villa just happens to also be an old orphanage, which the locals are convinced to be inhabited by a ghost (aren't all orphanages?). This leads the author's daughter to talk to her "new friend", which normally is a bad thing, but in this case aids the writer in her new story. However, a revelation later on leads the woman in a search for the truth behind her latest bestseller.

You can't help but be reminded of The Orphanage in the first half of the flick for obvious reasons, which delivers mixed results. We're given some decent chills, but nothing I would consider scary, which is fine since this is more of a mystery/thriller than supernatural flick, which we find out in the second half. I actually enjoyed the change of pace and found the murder mystery aspect more interesting than the whole haunted orphanage ordeal.

Bestseller is a decent flick that blends the supernatural and mystery sub-genres together, but not without its drawbacks, as the film's writing does suffer a bit because of it. However, I did enjoy enjoy the murder mystery aspect and unexpected twists that managed to get by me. Worth a check if you're a fan of Korean horror, but don't expect much as far as scares go.
OVERALL: 
Bestseller is a decent flick that blends the supernatural and mystery sub-genres together, but not without its drawbacks, as the film's writing does suffer a bit because of it. However, I did enjoy enjoy the murder mystery aspect and unexpected twists that managed to get by me. Worth a check if you're a fan of Korean horror, but don't expect much as far as scares go.


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