Review | Film review: Ghost Net – sexy, fun Hong Kong horror film triptych from three directors
Featuring three horror stories that range from satirical to creepy to gross, a cast of sexy models, a lesbian fantasy and plenty of nods to other horror classics, Ghost Net is an entertaining if unmemorable romp
2.5/5 stars
A Hong Kong horror anthology characterised as much by its interesting premises as its dedicated cast of sexy young models, Ghost Net comprises three diverting – if also largely throwaway – slices of stylised terror with varying degrees of success.
Crowd You Out, by television director Wong Kwok-keung, turns the issue of city’s unaffordable housing into a horror satire. Through the spooky encounters of the new tenant (Ashina Kwok Yik-sum) of a subdivided flat in an industrial building, it vividly captures the unsettling vibe of the inhospitable environment, while indulging her in a lesbian fantasy with an abused neighbour (Cherry Pau Hong-yi).
Less socially conscious, but just as provocative, is Double Body, directed by The Moment ’s Wong Kwok-fai. What starts out as a frustrated girl’s (Kabby Hui Nga-ting) Faustian deal with a tattoo artist to win back her boyfriend soon morphs into a bizarre morality tale, in which a deceased woman (Joman Chiang Cho-man) who has been devouring other people’s souls to prolong her own life considers giving up.
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All that intrigue goes out of the window with Horror Online by Yau Tat-chi, best known for 1998’s The Longest Nite. Revolving around the visit of a few internet hosts (led by Carlos Chan Ka-lok) to a haunted house, this sloppy gross-fest features everything from a bloated head to maggot sandwiches. Yau floods the production design with nods to horror classics – in the process highlighting how derivative his story is.
While a mixed bag this certainly is, Ghost Net knows its audience and does just enough to entertain. Ghost Net opens on November 23
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