The Horror Show
The Offering
by Kelvin Tong
The Offering, also known as The Faith of Anna Waters, is a horror offer easy to refuse. Kelvin Tong’s effort to add a Western flare to Asian horror is the cinematic equivalent of putting all eggs in one basket, and the result couldn’t possibly fascinate its viewers.
Without trying to oversimplify an already simplified plot, Tong’s story follows Jamie (Elizabeth Rice), a Chicago reporter travelling to Singapore in order to investigate the sudden death of her sister, Anna. The woman’s death, which appears to be a shocking suicide, left young Katie (Adina Herz) without a mother, so Jamie’s role gets another angle: to be the mother that the girl lost.
The cast is enriched with Anna’s estranged husband Sam (Matthew Settle) and two investigating priests (Colin Borgonon and Adrian Pang) who bring other horror aspects to the forefront, while finding clues to Anna’s death scattered around Singapore.
As the story progresses and the possibility of the death being a suicide gets farther and farther away, it becomes clear that the Devil’s been hard at work again in a final and macabre effort to resurrect the biblical Tower of Babel. Keeping that in mind, and additionally considering Katie’s belief that her mother will keep her promise and return from the dead in seven days, we understand that Tong’s mess takes form in a chaotic manner.
Grisly deaths, demonic entities, cyberwar, and good old-fashioned exorcisms are only a few of The Offering’s… offers. As it always goes, the main characters move towards the inevitable climax, however, I can’t imagine the Exorcist-like ending being inevitable. It could have been avoided, but who can blame Tong for loving every bit of the 1973 horror classic.
Even though the Singapore-born creator, Kevin Tong, is not new to the genre he failed to convince us on several levels, with the inability to incorporate as many horror elements as possible into one simple plot being the most important one.
Apparently, he wanted to make sure that he’d deliver a seat-edge thriller, but unfortunately he achieved the exact opposite: to resort to muddled clichéd tactics of no interest.
Maria Kriva
The Horror Show Menu.