Vietnamese horror films are rushing into theaters, with uneven quality
Vietnamese cinema has always had the participation of horror film projects in the past 2 years, even in the late 2024 to mid-2025, the number of films with this theme released by filmmakers increased.
At the beginning of the year, Vietnamese cinema has had a series of horror films released such as: "Quy nhap trang", "Lan tim" , "Tim vot", "Under the bottom of the lake", "Am Duong Lo", "Nam Nam", "Nha gia dinh" ... In which, many projects have exceeded the hundred billion VND mark, bringing good profits to filmmakers. However, the large number of horror films released in theaters has made the audience somewhat prosperous and bored.
The film "Under the Lake" (directed by Tran Huu Tan) will be released in June 2025. The film attracted attention when it first exploited the theme in parallel. This is a familiar theme in many Hollywood movies but is not yet popular in Vietnamese cinema.
The film is a confrontation between the ban and the copy, between the people of the present and themselves in the past. Although there are good ideas, the implementation is still awkward, the special effects still make many mistakes, the acting of the cast is not uniform, causing the project to not receive high reviews from viewers. After nearly a week in theaters, the film has only earned more than 19 billion VND.
Another case is the horror film "The Ten Year" currently showing in theaters. The film is inspired by folk games of the last ten, the plot is not so serious about being a evil cowboy but focuses on psychological elements, condemning current hot issues such as privacy, socialism, and online bullying. Although he was also considered to have good ideas, when he was released in theaters, he was criticized for disaster and poor acting of the cast. The work has only earned more than 2 billion VND.
The movie "Lay of the Sun" released in theaters not long ago was a pioneer in exploiting the horror genre of the journey. The film also has a new look when it mentioned the hidden corners of the ambulance driver industry, the psychological burden of ambulance drivers. However, because he was too caught up in tricks, the project left the theater with a lack of real breakthrough revenue.
The film Body of the Bodies is a similar case. The film faced many controversies about its quality but still sold well in the first few days. However, after the film earned more than 30 billion VND, it suddenly withdrew from theaters because it was afraid of competing with new films released a week later such as Flip Side 8, Detective Kien...
Currently, the producer of the film "Tim Co" has changed the project name to "Ma Khong Dau" to bring it back to the theater at the end of June. However, many viewers believe that the project is no longer attractive because it was released in theaters before. In addition, "The Corps" was also criticized in many stages such as the content and special effects that made the film not yet conquer the audience.
horror movies are not just waiting to get lucky, curious
Recent Vietnamese horror films mostly have in common the inspiration of folk stories, urban legends...
This makes the audience curious because these stories are familiar to many Vietnamese audiences when spread through many generations such as: "Ma da", "dyen nhap trang", "Ho Da tradition"...
However, overusing curious factors without improving the quality of films and acting causes projects to fall into a state of disrepair, lack of creativity and make it difficult to attract viewers.
The fact that many Vietnamese filmmakers are rushing to produce horror films also creates a negative effect when the audience will have more consideration and meticulousness in choosing a new work to watch instead of being curious.
Currently, Vietnamese filmmakers are only interested in touching some new points of the horror film genre. There, spiritual elements are still used because they are indispensable "colors", but the approach and perspective begin to change towards closer to modern life, entering more within. However, the weakness of Vietnamese horror films still lies in the development of scripts, special effects and acting by the cast. Most Vietnamese horror films are threatening but not profound enough in exploiting human psychology.
Many Vietnamese films are criticized for repeating old principles and old formulas, leading to skepticism and hesitation when spending money to buy tickets to watch the next works.
