Despite what a certain loud subset of fans may furiously insist, horror has been political since the genre's inception. Horror cinema has always been concerned with the social and cultural boundaries and bigotries that keep us apart, knowing that ghosts, slashers and man-eating monsters are only as scary as the context in which they exist.
Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee's The Cursed Land is a perfect example of this, using the historical tension between Thailand's Muslim and Buddhist communities as a framework for a chilling – if predictable – ghost story. Looking for a fresh start after the death of his wife, Mit (Shutter's Ananda Everingham) and his teen daughter May (Faces of Anne's Jennis Oprasert) leave the bustling centre of Bangkok for a run-down house in a rural suburb where the community is mostly made up of Malaysian Muslims. One of these neighbours, Heem (Satan's Slaves' Bront Palarae) seems actively hostile to Mit and has been hanging around the home after dark. As May and Mit suspect they have attracted the attention of a malicious djinn spirit, Mit is forced to put his prejudice aside and seek help from the Muslim community. Of course, it's never that simple, and The Cursed Land mostly unfolds as pretty standard haunted house fare in the vein of The Amityville Horror or The Shining – a stressed-out dad becomes a target for ghostly malevolence while the women (or in this case, girl) in his life are forced to clean up the mess.
The Cursed Land is at its best when it trusts the subtlety of those scares, and at its even worse when it knocks you over the head with them. As ghostly spectres start to plague Mit shortly after moving in, his sanity starts to unravel (due also to his Islamophobic paranoia that all his neighbours are out to get him), contrasting effectively with May's desperation to hold things together and try to secure them a new life. It's these moments that make for a truly moving dad-daughter relationship at The Cursed Land's heart, and make it easy for an audience to find true emotional investment in their plight.
For Western audiences, it's undoubtedly refreshing and insightful to watch an exorcism horror that draws from lesser-explored religions, as opposed to the bevvy of Christianity-focused horrors that have saturated the subgenre for decades, and The Cursed Land is most effective when it leans into the specifics of those rituals and traditions. But there's really nothing here that reinvents the wheel – you've seen these scares before, especially in the possession genre, which is as well-trodden as it gets. Furthermore, the film's spooky showdown gallantly but inadequately far tries too hard, with more than its fair share of dodgy SFX and overdramatic tendencies (floating wheelchairs and pitched-down demon voices included).
Overall, The Cursed Land probably won't be a movie you'll feel the need to revisit more than once, but it's a solid supernatural horror with a worthy social comment and a moving emotional core. Sometimes, that's really all you need.
The Cursed Land had its North American premiere on July 14 as part of New York Asian Film Festival's Thai Treasures selection.
