Scary fun - Thai horror comedies
An introduction to the most popular genre of Thailand cinema
This is a brief overview of the elements often found in Thai horror-comedies for the general film enthusiast. These are Thai films for Thai audiences.
In Thailand, a popular concept is transliterated as "sanook". This word is commonly translated as fun. "Sanook" is important in virtually every aspect of being a Thai, both at work and leisure. The films that Thai audiences favor are also "sanook". If a film isn't a pure comedy, it is often an action or horror film, often filled with comedy. The film combining horror and comedy is the most popular genre of all, especially with younger Thais. And like all genre films, there are elements that are consistent in a number of films.
As the films are primarily made for teenagers, the lead characters include an attractive young man and young woman. They are strangers to each other at the beginning of the film, but can be counted on to survive until the end. Often the main characters are college students, or older high school students, all from firmly middle class families.
The supporting characters typically include a goofy male best friend. Where there are secondary female characters, it seems obligatory to have one pretty young female who meets her untimely end in the bathroom. For comic relief, there is the fat guy. Large or fat men in drag also appear as a popular source of humor. Most often, the basic plot involves a vengeful ghost - while Thailand is officially a Buddhist country, animism informs much of its culture.
One of the newer films released, "Haunting Me", is basically about four very chubby men assuming female roles, chased by two ghosts. "Body Jumper" is self-explanatory title about a female ghost seeking revenge, and taking over the bodies of some college girls. "Vow of Death" concerns itself with four high school boys who make a wish to a holy banyan tree. Their wishes granted, they cannot make thank offerings as a lumber company chopped the tree to make toothpicks, and the ghost in the tree has not been appeased. These are just three examples of films that either combine or alternate dumb humor with sometimes extraordinary scenes of violence.
Some of these films are now available internationally on DVD. There is no clear similarity to western films. With its sometimes graphic scenes of horror, and extremely broad humor, the Thai horror comedy can best be described as resembling Abbott and Costello's version of "Psycho".
