FrightFest review – Tomb Watcher

FrightFest review – Tomb Watcher

This is a feature remake of a popular Thai TV series – which has franchise status on its own territory.

Set in 1991, it’s a noirish triangle story with a ghostly spin.  Cheev (Thanavate Siriwattanagul), an artist, takes his girlfriend Rossukhon (Arachaporn Pokinpakorn) to a house in the woods he says they will own – along with the woods, a fortune, a company and even a mountain – if they stay there for one hundred days.  By the terms of his late wife’s will, Cheev has to stay – along with Ros – for the full term to inherit … oh, and Lunthom (Woranuch BhiromBhakdi) is preserved on ice in a glass tomb in the basement.  Cheev only lets Ros find out about all this gradually, and we get fragmentary flashbacks to explain the prior relationships of all three and the circumstances of Lunthom’s death, but inevitably the guilty adulterous couple are haunted by Lunthom’s black-handed spectre, who sets out to get back together with her husband via possession though she’s more interested in vengeance than a romantic reunion.

There are humorous elements to the set-up, but director Vathanyu Ingkawiwat plays it on a relatively sombre note while the three leads (who are pretty much the only characters for much of the film) all get an emotional workout.  It springs a couple of good scares through the tried-and-tested means of hands reaching into frame, angry ghosts creeping or popping up when least (or most) expected and characters getting busy with edged weapons.

Here’s the FrightFest listing.