by Sharmeel Sidhu
WHEN it comes to watching horror movies, we always tend to re-watch old classics like Carrie, The Exorcist, Psycho, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Well, Halloween is only two weeks away so we thought we’d put together a movie list for you. If you’re looking for something different this year, why not go local?
The Maid
The Kelvin Tong-directed horror flick, The Maid, is the pioneer film in this list, being dubbed as the “first Singaporean horror film”. The story follows 18-year-old maid Rosa Dimaano from the Philippines, who moves in with the Teo family, living in a run-down shophouse during the Hungry Ghost Festival. The family is involved in the Teochew Opera business (I find the actors dressed up in thick, cake-y make-up scary enough, actually) and are busy putting on shows this month. Rosa arrives to take care of the family’s mentally ill son, but soon finds herself being haunted by the previous maid, Esther.
The jump shots are not as scary as the fact that the movie revolves around the scariest time of the year for us Singaporeans (or for scaredy-cat me, at least).
The movie’s must-watch scene: When Esther is watching one of the plays staged by her family and innocently sits in the first row(!). A ghostly old man asks her “Why are you sitting in my wife’s seat?”
23:59
Another made-in-Singapore film that is sure to give you the creeps and make you stunned like vegetable, is “23:59″. The plot hits too close to home for anyone who’s served in the National Service and has spent nights at Tekong exchanging horror stories about the batches before them: the year is 1983 and an army recruit is found dead right at 23.59pm, a minute before midnight. The NSFs are undergoing training on a secluded jungle island and one of the men, Jeremy, is visited daily by a lady ghost that had previously been rumoured to have died on the island.
The movie itself might not be the scariest you’ve seen and is definitely not on the same level as other Asian films, but it does hit too close to home, which is terrifying enough.
The movie’s must-watch scene: The recruits were on a road march and trying to find of the main characters, Tan, who had disappeared earlier. Their flashlights stopped working and the sergeant ordered the four of them to get in a line and do a head count. The count went normally, until a whispering “five…” was said. The recruits looked back in horror, and Number 4 screamed and fell to the ground, claiming to have seen Tan.
Haunted Changi
The 2010 mockumentary Haunted Changi’s plot is one we have seen many times: A group of filmmakers explore the infamous Old Changi Hospital and discover the “secrets” of the building that is said to be haunted by the victims of the Japanese Occupation.
Honestly, the acting is not too great, and you know it’s all pretend while you’re watching it: them stumbling through the different rooms screaming; unidentified “people” turning up in their footage. Even though you know its all make-believe, just like the Paranormal Activity series and the Blair Witch Project, the sudden pop-ups on screen when you least expect them makes this movie worth checking out.
The movie’s must-watch scene: All the scenes with random ghosts turning up on camera. All of them.
Blood Ties
Blood Ties is one local movie on this list with an unusual plot: a policeman, Shun, and his wife, Ah Mei, possesses his own sister and Mother, Madam Lee, to seek revenge on his boss and the gang that beat and shot him to death.
Basically, most of the movie is as strange as it gets: a young girl violently beats all the men involved and doesn’t stop even when the burly, tattooed men are begging for mercy, on the seventh night after her brother and sister-in-law’s tragic death.
The movie was more gory than scary, with sister Qin killing the men in sadistic ways; she shoots one of them right in his privates. Ouch.
The movie’s must-watch scene: When Shun and and Ah Mei are brutally killed; Ah Mei is raped even after she’s been killed, and Shun has his tongue cut out when he screams after seeing his wife being stabbed.
Ghost on Air
Not spooked yet? Ghost on Air is another local film, that stars real life Y.E.S. 93.3FM DJ Zhou Chong Qing, acting as Ping Xiao, a DJ that enjoys telling ghost stories on air; the stories that he shares are ones that were written by his dead girlfriend, a horror novelist. Of course, the twist here is that the stories are actually not fictitious, and Ping Xiao is haunted by these spirits.
The movie’s must-watch scene: When Ping Xiao talks about Jia Li, a 25-year-old woman who goes through an abortion, and is haunted by her unborn child, whispering, “Mum, I’m cold”, and repeatedly bangs on his drum that gets louder and louder after a while. Later on in the movie Ping Xiao is haunted by the story and dreams of himself hugging the drum while lying in bed.
Featured image is a screengrab of 23:59 movie trailer.
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