Review | The Maid film review: Netflix’s Thai horror gives way to revenge slasher with extreme violence

Lifting themes and entire sequences from Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden and, of all things, American Psycho, the twists keep coming

Director Lee Thongkham’s slow-burn approach and a clumsy screenplay slow the pace and dampen the tension

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Ploy Sornarin plays terrified hired help in Thai horror film The Maid, on Netflix, directed by Lee Thongkham and co-starring Savika Chaiyadej and Theerapat Sajakul. Photo: Netflix

Published: 4:15pm, 14 Jul 2020Updated: 6:22pm, 17 Jul 2020

2.5/5 stars

The Maid starts out as just another tawdry tale of a naive young housemaid tormented by vague supernatural forces in a ridiculously lavish mansion. But Lee Thongkham’s film turns into an audaciously violent revenge slasher of which even the subversive filmmaker Sion Sono might be proud.

Only the most dedicated of film-goers will get to appreciate this Thai movie’s gratuitous excesses, since its painfully uninspired opening act will put off more viewers than it legitimately frightens.

Baby-faced Ploy Sornarin plays Joy, the eponymous new hire of laughably wealthy couple Uma (Savika Chaiyadej) and Nirach (Theerapat Sajakul). Despite their cold indifference to their employees, they enjoy the fierce loyalty of the household staff, none of whom is willing to discuss the departure of Joy’s predecessor, Ploy (Kannaporn Puangtong).

Only the couple’s sickly daughter Nid (Keetapat Pongrue) is at all welcoming, but before she and Joy have time to strike up a meaningful bond, the latter is tormented by visions of a spooky maid, as well as a bizarre ghost-monkey, in the shadowy hallways of the mansion.

This tired retread of every notable Gothic romance and upstairs/downstairs drama, from The Innocents to Parasite , albeit without the atmosphere or tension, eventually gives way to a more intriguing, if no less derivative, story.