Thailand
(Katazyna’s article) * Mae Nak’s duality of loving and obedient wife/unclean and evil monster: common perception of woman and shows male insecurity about women * Any attempts to introduce non-supernatural plots to Thai horror so far met with strong resistance. People believe there is a reason to kill, cause and effect. The only way to show killing outside this cause and effect pattern is to involve black magic (Khmer black magic, known as long khong in Thai) * Conventional Thai ghost: Appear to audience as indistinguishable from living characteristics until it chooses to reveal its identity * Phil Tai Hong conventions: 1. Materialise in the vicinity of their death site. 2. Linked to specific humans who they use as channels of communication with the world * Contemporary Thai horror: Ghosts rely on technology as their site of manifestation and channel of communication (Natre in Shutter crawls out of photograph). 2. Ghosts can transform themselves into digital image radio waves. 3. Metaphorization of ghosts to bring out certain concepts (use of cinematic metaphors) * Director Arayangkoon in The Victim & The House * Director Paween Puri in The Body #19

(Mary Ainslie’s article) * Director Pakpoom Wongpoom and Banjong Pisan (Phenomena Motion Pics): Shutter; 2004 (highest grossing Thai movie for 2004, 4th overall) * New Thai Cinema started with the Thai sakon nostalgia element, which is a blend of Thainess and selected international aesthetics, depicting a fantasized and exoticised old Thailand (visual excess) (eg: Director Nonzee’s Dang Bireley; 1997 & NangNak; 1999) * Noel Carroll: Horror film is a narrative structure that produces pleasure and interest, engaging audience attention through the processes of proof and discovery, processes inherent in a suspense narrative of question and answer fulfilment. *