3 February 2008

There's no denying the horror potential of the set-up of Sarawut Wichiensarn's Ghost game (Laa-thaa-phii). 11 contestants agree to take part in a reality show that will have them imprisoned in an abandoned war museum in Cambodia, a former Khmer Rouge prison that is now reputed to be home to the spirits of the thousands who were tortured and killed during the 1970s. The winner will receive the highest prize ever awarded on a Thai game show, but the tasks involved are far more challenging than those dealt out on Big Brother or Survivor. The rules of Ghost Game demand that the contestants deliberately provoke the wrath of the spirits believed to inhabit the building.

As the game progresses, scepticism and greed-driven fearlessness are soon put to the test by a series of bizarre and inexplicable occurrences and apparitions that initially seem to be the work of the programme's production crew. Then the killings begin and the contestants find themselves trapped in a nightmare from which there is no apparent escape, their panic, terror and screams broadcast live to a viewing nation.

There's a novelty aspect that will probably be lost on western audiences in a cast made up from actual contestants from the American Idol-style Thai TV game show, Academy Fantasia, and the film itself attracted a degree of controversy when it was banned in Cambodia, apparently due to the similarity of the prison in the film to the actual Toul Sieng prison during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Whether it works or not as a movie remains to be seen - opinion is certainly divided and we've been this way once before with the over-praised My Little Eye. You'll get your chance to judge on 25th February 2008 when Ghost Game is released on UK DVD by Showbox Home Entertainment on their Cine Asia label at the RRP of £12.99. At present it doesn't look as if there's anything in the way of extras, but we'll update if we hear different.