Frighteningly bad

Chinese horror movies are notorious for provoking snorts of derision rather than racing pulses ... until now, that is.

Horror movie fans Cao Zhong and Lu Jia recently had a fierce argument about whether to go and see a recently released Chinese movie, The House That Never Dies.

Lu was keen to head to the cinema, having seen ads and trailers that piqued her curiosity about the first Chinese-made big-budget 3-D horror movie, the plot of which centers around an abandoned, reputedly haunted, mansion in downtown Beijing.