THE STORY – A wealthy family’s polished exterior begins to crack when an ancient centipede spirit infiltrates their bloodline.
THE CAST – Davika Hoorne, Baipor Thitiya Jirapornsilp, Sinjai Plengpanich, Trin Settachoke & Warattaya Nilkuha
THE TEAM – Banjong Pisanthanakun (Director/Writer), Thamsatid Charoenrittichai & Chantavit Dhanasevi (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 128 Minutes
Banjong Pisanthanakun made a splash with his 2004 debut feature, the haunted camera chiller “Shutter”, which caused such a stir that Hollywood remade it in 2008. He hasn’t reached that level of international success since, but horror connoisseurs and fans of Thai cinema should know his name. His latest film, “Inherit,” recalls his 2013 success “Pee Mak” in its inspiration from Thai folklore and its star, Davika Hoorne, but the similarities stop there. While that period ghost story leaned heavily on comedy, “Inherit” takes a much more serious approach, focusing on atmosphere, brutally gory violence, and socially relevant themes. While the latter ends up being more of a mixed bag, often feeling inconsistent or muddled in its presentation, the first two work very much in the film’s favor, creating a feeling of heightened reality that would have felt just at home in TIFF’s Midnight Madness section as in its Centerpiece section.
When the Manasvanich family matriarch dies, her daughter Sudaduang (Sinjai Plengpanich) returns to her hometown with her family for the funeral. At her mother’s request, Sudaduang hasn’t visited in years, but that doesn’t stop the local extended family members from making snide remarks about how uncaring she must be. When a mysterious, unaddressed envelope appears, saying that her Aunt Woranart (Davika Hoorne) is coming to pay her respects, she’s surprised, but not nearly as surprised as she is when her auntie actually shows up, looking exactly as she did the last time they saw each other fifty years ago. Despite being over 80 years old, Woranart looks like a model, dressed in fabulous designer clothes and sporting enviably smooth skin and hair, which she claims has gray in it despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite her beautiful, friendly appearance, unsettling things start happening around Woranart, and when she takes an interest in Oui (Thitiya Jirapornsilp), the family’s chronically ill youngest child, it’s clear her motivations aren’t exactly pure. As the family struggles with the fallout of a chemical leak at one of their local factories, Sudaduang’s memories of family history slowly return, leading her to believe Woranart may, in fact, be possessed by an ancient evil that has haunted their bloodline for generations. And now, it has its sights set on Oui.
While the film has fun terrorizing members of this bourgeois family with examples of their past bad behavior, its social commentary has little meat on the bones. The film’s screenplay (adapted by Pisanthanakun, Thamsatid Charoenrittichai, and Ter Chantavit Dhanasevi from the novel by Chumsai Na Ayutthaya) is more successful when focusing on Woranart and her obsession with youth and beauty. The film gets good comedic mileage from the extended family reacting to Woranart’s appearance, bombarding her for pictures and beauty tips. Hoorne knows just how to play her, slinking around in revealing clothing, a sly smile seemingly always curling around the edge of her lips; she’s always seducing someone, and the joy on her face whenever they take the bait is irresistibly, fabulously, evil (Aunt Gladys wishes she could look so good while causing terror so effortlessly). While the film’s messaging on this front gets a little muddled by the end, which seems to reinforce many of the social strictures Woranart was rebelling against, watching Hoorne revel in the character’s witchy ways provides enough of a twisted kick to keep both the character and the increasingly diffuse plot compelling.
Hoorne’s performance is the film’s strongest single element, but Pisanthanakun’s sleek direction elevates the story’s mostly rather conventional scares at every turn. The film’s first act is an atmospheric slow burn, taking its time to establish the characters and the world they live in. Once the scares come harder and faster in the film’s second half, all bets are off, beginning with a one-of-a-kind death on an escalator, filmed with such nonchalant confidence that you don’t even realize what’s happening until it’s too late. While nothing else here has the bone-chilling quality of that moment, Pisanthanakun’s execution of the film’s other more conventional horror setpieces works a treat. One moment in the film’s go-for-broke climactic sequence involving tiny totems that move when the electric lights flicker to darkness elicits pure giddiness from the way its rock-solid execution pays off its setup. That climax drags on far too long, needlessly extending the film to just over two hours, but you can’t deny the entertainment value Pisanthanakun and his cast bring to the table. “Inherit” may be full of supernatural horror tropes, but like Woranart herself, it’s so fabulously executed that it’ll have you under its spell long after it’s over.
