While glittery vampires camp it up and cause box office queues, and Japanese-style ghosts flit and flutter across video tapes and down phone lines, spare a thought for Thailand's odd assortment of ghosts and ghouls.

For the most part, Thailand's ghosts just can't get any international cinematic respect. Of course, there have been exceptions - Nonzee Nimbutr's 1999 film Nang Nak achieved international success and critical acclaim for his polished retelling of the legend of a Bangkok woman who dies in childbirth after her husband goes to war but so strong is her love that she stays around in spirit form. Since then, break-out films such as Bangkok Haunted, directed by Pisuth Praesaeng-lam and Hong Kong-born Oxide Pang, and the 2004 smash Shutter by Banjong Pisonthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, have tended to be strongly influenced by Japanese movies such as The Ring and The Grudge.

But Thailand has one of Asia's richest and weirdest collection of home-grown spooks. There is the Phi Kraseu - a female spirit whose head separates from its body at night and floats through the sky with its entrails dangling beneath it, feasting only on fresh faeces; her male equivalent, the Phi Krahaeng, prefers his excrement dry. There is Phi Am, who sits on your chest and pins you to the bed; Phi Brairt, a hulking ghost with a tiny mouth. And finally, the Phi Pob, a possessing spirit who turns its victims into zombie-like creatures with an insatiable appetite for viscera. Will any of them ever get their day in the sun, or at least their night in the spotlight?