Lee Thongkham (director)
(studio)
18 (certificate)
102 (length)
28 August 2021 (released)
29 August 2021
Taking a few J-Horror staples like the black hair, cracking bones and joints director Lee Thongkham, co-written with Piyaluk Tuntisrisakul has built on that with The Maid to create a very enjoyable horror story set in Thailand.
Joy (Ploy Sornarin) has taken a maid’s post at a very well to do couple with a young daughter Lady Nid (Keetapat Pongrue ). Uma (Savika Chaiyadej) the lady of the house is distant and after a few cursory questions is happy to let head housekeeper Wan (Natanee Sitthisaman) take charge of Joy. There’s a few rules the main one being mind your own business. This is actually more problematic than it sounds as we and Joy are given early glimpses on the ghost that haunts the building and at the start appears to manifest itself through Nid’s collection of monkey toys. NId herself is under observation for possible mental health issues and is a child of few words.
The manifestations start to become more frequent with the phantom more active though not aggressive. Joy’s natural curiosity means she starts to poke around the house discovering photos of the master and an other maid. When asking about the other maid she’s given short shrift told that she left many years ago with no notice. Basically mind your own business and get on with your work something that Joy is just not going to do.
Split into three chapters each deliberately developing the story, The Maid is a beautiful film capturing the sumptuous surroundings of the house’s long driveway and fountains contrasting with the darker elements within with clever use of shadow and colour to create some tension.
With the ghost (Kannaporn Puantong} showing up quite early that sense of haunting dread falls away a bit and the film concentrates on other issues and why she is there. By intertwining flashback and memory with present day the tale builds satisfactorily to a deeper conclusion than the events in Chapter 3 may initially show.
The cast are all very good with Sornarin having a lot of fun with a deeply flawed character. Which suits a film that has seam of sadistic humour running through it and is at times so stab happy that even the most hardened will wince.
