Death Whisperer (Tee Yod)

 A dark spirit haunts a small rural community in Western Thailand. It gruesomely kills off a young girl in the film's cold open just for funsies, and then sets its sights on the middle daughter of a large farming family.

 After that initial jolt, the film goes through a morass of trite family drama and cheesy jump scares. The sisters enjoy a close bond, but once Yam (Rattanawadee Wongth ong) gets possessed, she starts going on night jaunts, eating raw meat, and lying to get her loving older sister (Denise Jelilcha Kapaun) into trouble. Meanwhile, eldest brother Yak (Nadech Kugimiya) arrives from a stint with the military to show off his physique and take a more hands-on approach in fighting off the invading spirit.

 The drama is unconvincing - very saccharine and basic - and for a while there, the horror side of things isn't a lot better: creepy figures staring from afar, jump scares, and even that old tired chestnut of scary children's drawings. Slow burns are just slow when they're this tired and trite. No haunted toys, at least.

 But as creepy events pile on, the film gathers a little momentum and gets a lot more fun. There's a great scene among the cornstalks where Yak, shotgun in hand, confronts the spirit that convinced me this was going to be worth it... and yeah, the film does get a lot better.

 By the time a family friend (Ongart Cheamcharoenpornkul) and an exorcist (Phorjate Kanpetch) get involved around the halfway mark, the film starts churning out crazy, energetic scenes that very clearly out director Taweewat Wantha as an Evil Dead fan. It's derivative, never scary, and the pacing is still a little slow (this movie had no business being two hours long), but there's enough over-the-top gory action to satisfy any deadite cravings. 

 The acting is stilted and overtly earnest, the effects are fun but clearly low budget, and the writing is a little on the corny side, but I think the one thing that most bothered me (besides the bloated running time) is the soundtrack by Terdsak Janpan; it's hilariously overbearing, piling on the saccharine during the cutesy sisterhood scenes and trite horror signifiers during any bit where the spirit is even mentioned.

 All the supernatural stuff purports to be 'based on real events', which led me to think there was some folklore behind the story, but it's actually based on a sort of Thai creepy pasta published in 2015, which the same author Krittanont then adapted into a novel. I guess he claims that it all actually happened to him; Sure, buddy. The script's by Sorarat Jirabovornwisut and Thammanan Chulaborirak.

 At the very end there's a goofy scene setting up a sequel; As long as it follows up more on this movie's climax than its languid first half, I'm all for it.

Dorm (Dek Hor)

 Dorm is a pretty cool Thai kid-friendly coming-of-age drama with some supernatural horror added to spice things up.

 After a disappointing school year, Ton (Charlie Taurat) is sent over to a boarding school in the country side and placed in the hands of the cold, uncaring Ms. Pranee (Chintara Sukapatana). It's about as rough an adjustment as you'd expect, especially when the new school features communal dorms and showers that would not be out of place in a prison. The institutional, cold palette the movie uses is all the school scenes doesn't help.

 

 Ton 'befriends' a band of kids who alternately bully and accept him (a pretty accurate depiction of social dynamics at that age, I feel), and that night they gather to tell ghost stories. It's a really great scene - the ghosts they take turns talking about either walk by or are shown in short vignettes that include looking between your own legs (an old Thai superstition) to see the ghost of a hanged woman; Fun!

 In any case, there's one ghost they specifically warn Ton about, of a kid their age that drowned in a pool. They tell him never to go to the bathroom at night if the dogs are baying. And sure enough, that night he has to go to take a piss, there's a chorus of dogs howling outside, and he runs into a gh-gh-gh-ghost! He runs back to his cot, bladder undrained, which results in a wet bed the next morning; Not great for his social life.

 With everyone against him after that bed-wetting incident, there's just one other kid with whom Ton gets along - Vichien (Sirachuch Chienthaworn) - but Ton's bad luck holds. During a night screening of a Thai knock-off of Mr. Vampire (very charming, and made especially for this movie) Ton discovers that no one else can see Vichien; He's the ghost everyone's talking about.

 But Vichien doesn't seem particularly scary - more sad than menacing - and Ton's outcast status hangs heavy over him; Soon the two kids are hanging out again, and Ton manages to work out some of the metaphysics underpinning the haunting. That gets him looking into the mystery of his friend's death... and wondering if he can do something to put him at rest.

 It's a sweet, well-observed, funny movie that sheds the horror part pretty quickly, but integrates the supernatural into its yarn, including some pretty striking imagery. It's all a little too derivative of The Devil's Backbone, but between that, all the Mr. Vampire references - be on the lookout for an appearance from one of that film's distinctive caskets - and the fact that it takes things in a pretty different direction, I'm just going to chalk it down to some pretty good taste from the writers (Vanridee Pongsittisak,Songyos Sugmakanan,Chonlada Tiaosuwan) and the director (Songyos Sugmakanan).

 It's got some severe pacing issues - the film didn't really need to be almost two hours long, and the middle section suffers as a result. It can also get pretty corny. But the kid actors do a really great job - Taurat, in particular, anchors the film effortlessly, and the script is gratifyingly a little more sophisticated than I expected: a few (a little on-the-nose) motifs develop, there's a couple weird touches (a very funny explanation for why the dogs howl at Vichien stands out), and some unexpected developments add nuance to Ton's anger at his dad. I would have adored this movie had I watched it as a kid; Now, as a jaded old  fuck, I still kind of love it. Very much recommended.