From Taiwan to Fantasia International Film Festival comes the international premiere of Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo. This supernatural horror film was written by Wan-Zhen Zou (Women in Taipei) and directed by Chia-Ying Tsai, taking inspiration from Taiwanese legend. Young couple Chia-Ming and Yu-Hsin hike the same mountain every year. When a sinister force puts them in a deadly time loop, Chia-Ming must find a way to save Yu-Hsin and break the cycle.

Watching Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo, it might be hard to believe this is the feature-film debut for both the writer and director. The film takes it’s time introducing the couple as they hike on a mountain with a dark history. The audience gets to know them and why they come back to this specific place again and again. Once they become trapped in the time loop, pieces of the lore come into focus. The audience is also given more and more context, revealing the truth behind the evil and why it has targeted these people. For the most part, this is a frightening and fascinating film. It layers in different, interconnected mysteries, adding to the suspense all while delivering the terror with an evil spirit out for revenge. The gradual reveal of important details leads to multiple shocking revelations, each more eye-opening than the last.

While the film certainly delivers a great mystery with plenty of scares, the lore throughout Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo can sometimes get a bit convoluted. It’s inspired by a Taiwanese legend involving an evil spirit in a yellow raincoat. This spirit is said to appear from the fog, and all those who make eye contact or follow the figure vanish without a trace. While elements of this exist in the film, the filmmakers also create their own unique spin. This is where things can get a bit confusing. It seems as though the filmmakers tried to marry the known aspects of this legend with their own new lore, but the pieces don’t always fit together. It leaves a few plot holes by the time the film ends, but it’s still a very interesting take on the legend.

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo has a great cast with the two leads being definitive standouts. Jasper Liu (Take Me to the Moon, Triad Princess) stars as Chia-Ming. Lui wonderfully brings to light two sides of Chia-Ming. He is desperately trying to move forward and do whatever he can to be worthy of the love of his life, but at the same time, he is wracked with guilt and haunted by his past. His character makes for a perfect parallel to the supernatural occurrences on the mountain. Angela Yuen (The Narrow Road, i.Swim) plays Chia-Ming’s girlfriend, Yu-Hsin. While Yuen’s performance primarily comes across as more understated, there are shocking moments when her portrayal completely changes. Whether possessed by an evil spirit, or on the verge of death while lost in the woods, she manages to bring an unexpectedly haunting physicality to the role that will have audiences gravely concerned about the sweet, innocent Yu-Hsin.

A ghostly horror film isn’t complete without terrifying sights and sounds. Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo primarily takes place on a woodsy mountainside. It’s beautiful, but the liberal application of fog certainly gives the forest a sinister edge. This, and the few other locations shown throughout the film, have great production design, but there is one instance in which a sound stage set appears to be used. It’s a pivotal scene, but because it’s so obviously a constructed set it might take the viewer out of the scene a bit. The evil entity, for the most part, is great. It has a simplistic design, often shown partially hidden in the fog and composed with CGI. The CGI doesn’t always look great, but it still leads to some great scares. The CGI work does shine in a couple of death scenes, revealing unexpected views to shocking deaths, which will no doubt stick with audiences. Add to that some unnerving sound design and a bit of practical makeup effects, and the result is terror that gets under the skin.

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo is a frightening supernatural mystery sure to make audiences pay attention to Taiwanese horror. While the blending of an established legend with new lore isn’t always seamless, it’s still a wonderful feature film debut for both Wan-Zhen Zou and Chia-Ying Tsai. The way these filmmakers played with time and slowly revealed important clues adds plenty of intrigue alongside the more traditional ghostly scares. Both Liu and Yuen are great, making sure the humanity at the heart of the plot shines. The visuals might not always look their best, but the terror is undeniable.

OVERALL RATING: 6.5/10