The Unborn (a.k.a. The Mother)
Director: Bhandit Thongdee
Year: 2003
Starring: Inthira Charoenpura, Wannakit Siriput,
Karunpon Thieansuwan
Time: 108 minutes
Porawee (Inthira Charoenpura
– the heartbreaking Nang Nak) is a bartender and low level pusher/user who
gets on the wrong side of her drug supplier (Wannakit Siriput) when the money
she hands over doesn’t equal the amount of drugs she has sold. Like every
reputable slimy drug dealer would do in that situation he bashes her around
and throws her off a pier for dead into the water. She survives. But nothing
is quite the same anymore. Something she doesn’t understand happened under
the water that probably saved her life but is driving her to the brink of
madness. In the hospital the doctor informs her that she is ten weeks pregnant
and her first thought is to abort it, but she soon has other worries to occupy
her.
She begins having flashes
of visions and horrible nightmares – except she is awake. She almost drowns
in a bathroom stall, sees a fetus in the water cooler and of course has a
longhaired female ghost slithering towards her. Everyone assumes she is sneaking
in drugs and these are just hallucinations, but a social worker (Karunpon
Thieansuwan) begins to wonder whether she is possessed or is really seeing
something supernatural. An old lady lying in another hospital bed tells him
of the visitor “She will go when she gets what she wants”. But what does
this ghost want?
This film falls squarely
in the large bin of ghost stories influenced by The Ring and this one also
owes some moments to “The Eye”. This sub-genre of pissed off female ghosts
who come back to get their own – but never do it simply but always in a roundabout
manner - seems a bit overdone now but can still give a few chills. This ghost
has reasons to be angry but instead of doing her own dirty work she uses
Porawee to bring about some revenge. The film is fairly uneven – it contains
some nice scenes and images that are creepy – but then hospitals naturally
creep me out – with the first half being decently engrossing. In the second
half though the mood that was created is lost and the film becomes almost
a pedestrian hunt for the bad guys that is so obvious that you wonder why
they bother. Director Bhandit Thongdee also directed the very different and
quite charming musical Hoedown Showdown.
My rating for this film:
5.5
(Inthira Charoenpura)