IFFR 2009

Yongyoot Thongkongtoon

Paween Purijitpanya

Banjong Pisanthanakun

Parkpoom Wongpoom

Four of the best horror film makers, yes, including the makers of Shutter, each made their own different part of a four-part horror film. In Thailand, it became a hit and they are used to a lot there. We won't give anything away about any of the parts, but all of them can be recommended.

Signals: Hungry Ghosts

4BIA

Rico Maria Ilarde

The shabby boxer Anton is ponderous. Once he killed someone with a punch and now he is consumed by guilt. Death and killing seem to have it in for him. He does some odd jobs in an empty old house and ghosts seem to be everywhere. Not even his darling Angie can help him.

Altar

Paul Agusta

Sadistic film. Rough in its images and rough or even cruel in its theme. A young film critic realised that making real horror is not that easy at all and that's why he wanted to try it. He didn't have any means at his disposal, but does have a feeling for what is really scary.

The Anniversary Gift

Pasit Buranachan

Aht Thamtragoon

The best and most intense horror films come from Thailand and this is full-blooded, even by Thai standards. If you can take it, this is where to be; if you're squeamish maybe you should give this a miss. In order to seduce the attractive Panor, several men accidentally wake the devil.

Art of the Devil 3

Cogon grass is a stubborn weed. It goes wild around the deserted mansion where a robber is hiding. The mansion turns out to be inhabited, but not by the living. The living look for a way through the grass, Leeward by the booty of the robbery. But real danger doesn't care about money.

Beneath the Cogon

Apparently it doesn't matter how many pieces you cut the body up into; the spirit puts everything back together again to take revenge. This horror film is among the best of its kind. Really scary, really well made and with a really clever story. Medical horror. Not for wimps.

Body

Wisit Sasanatieng

This room is made with the aid of the oldest cinematographic techniques, from the time when real ghosts were found in films. A look inside an old, traditional Thai house. The kind of house where ghosts feel at home.

Close Encounter of the Ghost

Ekachai Uekrongtham

If you think you can help a sick girlfriend, you are willing to do a lot. The hunk of Thai cinema Ananda Everingham plays a young man who even lies in a coffin alive for it, during a ritual that really takes him into the realm of the dead. A horror film for thinking people.

The Coffin

Izuchi Kishu

Epilogue (but shot earlier) of an anti-capitalist parable. In a provincial town, economic life is virtually wiped out by a major company. A harsh battle that claims victims. Mayumi stands up from the dead and takes revenge. Last part of an unusual trilogy.

Episode 0 The House of The Rising Sun

Second part (the parts go from 1 to 2 to 0) of an anti-capitalist parable. Three women form a political bunch of robbers. Among them Mayumi, who drowned in a previous life.

Episode 1 The Pale Horse

Second part of a trilogy: an anti-capitalist parable. A major forgery case brings the Japanese economy to the brink. Two policemen hunt for Mayumi: the woman who rose from the dead.

Episode 2 The Replicated Ruin

Kuang Sheng

Lin Tzu-liang

Liang Hung-chih

Tiwa Moeithaisong

A horror film with a pleasantly complex story. A Thai-Taiwanese co-production as a result of which the ghosts and living dead come from two worlds. A man loses his Chinese identity and becomes a Thai bureaucrat. With his rubber stamp, he literally decides about life and death.

The Fatality

Joko Anwar

Elegant horror thriller by the film maker who gave the Indonesian Cinemark an audience and self-confidence. A successful sculptor goes off track when he thinks he sees mysterious messages. Whether they come from another world is the question.

Forbidden Door

Three parts (the parts go from 1 to 2 to 0) of an anti-capitalist parable. Three women form a political band of robbers. Including Mayumi, who drowned in a previous life but returns as a vengeful Angel: she rose from the dead like Lazarus.

Lazarus Episode 1-2-0

Lav Diaz

This is where the ghosts of the dictator couple Marcos and those of their victims live. The state of siege re-emerges. Maybe The Brockas' punk rock can chase out Satan, but one fears it can't. Installation by the master of the extremely long film.

Manila's Dark Room

Nguyen Vinh Son

The Vietnamese master film maker travelled to the old imperial city of Hue in order to find the right objects for the right alter and use them to furnish his room in the Haunted House. Nothing now gets in the way of evoking a ghost from the world of the non-living.

Meeting Room for Life and After-life

A beautiful and sensitive film from a beautiful and yet really harsh Vietnam. A young schoolteacher devotes herself entirely to her husband. But eventually she reaches the end of her patience. Then she disappears into a different world.

Moon at the Bottom of the Well

Ko Eun-Ki

Apparently an imaginative, colourful and fairytale film, but the theme is serious and the tone is dark in the end. The filling station attendant sells his soul to win the love of the girl next door. It dooms him to eternal roaming. He gets his lover, but not forever.

My Love, Yurie

Nattapong Ratanachoksirikul

Children's film. A cheerful and pleasant ghost film, yet still a real children's film. Animation in bright colours with ghosts, demons and spirits as protagonists. You've been warned: it really is a children's film, but a spirited one.

Tsukamoto Shinya

A girl seeks help from the Nightmare Detective, who can enter dreams. But the detective is himself plagued by terrifying dreams. The girl doesn't give up, but the nightmares of the detective don't either. Bloodcurdling horror without any bloodshed.

Nightmare Detective 2

Kim Tae-Gon

Young family moves to an apartment in the city. A strange apartment, it soon becomes apparent, and it is in an even stranger building. Even stranger are the inhabitants - especially those who should have been dead or maybe are. Skilful horror thriller.

The Pot

Riri Riza

You'll find it difficult to get closer to an old Indonesian cleansing ritual than this. You can't seek support from another (living) person; you have to go in on your own, the maker says. He's convinced that in the room filled with strange scents you won't be alone.

A Purification Pod

Amir Muhammad

Anybody who thinks a room in a Haunted House is dark will be surprised by publisher/film maker Muhammad's fresh IKEA room. He proposes a businesslike environment to read a beautiful booklet about Malaysia and ghosts. Those who come (back) on the last day can take a copy with them.

Reading Room

Kelvin Tong

When a police officer claimed to have seen a ghost, he gets transferred to a vague and forgotten department. Rule one of the department is: there are no ghosts. At least, that's the rule to the outside world, because in fact they hunt them doggedly and in a virtuoso way.

Rule #1

Songsak Mongkolthong

A horror film for lovers. Not only for the lovers of horror, but also for lovers of film. During a legendary open-air performance in the Thai countryside, ghosts appear from the forest to watch the film. A doctor who believes the story takes the film to the city, ghosts and all.

The Screen at Kamchanod

Raditya Sidharta

Because the makers love old Indonesian horror films, they wanted to make something like that themselves. A modern classic. Dark forests, old bloody rituals and almost undefeatable black magic. You don't have to tell Indonesians how to make a horror film.

The Shaman

Naeim Ghalili

Clever and satirical horror film. In the magic practice of <em>susuk,</em> small valuable objects are inserted under the skin. It brings eternal beauty, but sacrifices do have to be made. A diva on the downturn and a nurse as a diva on her way up finally meet their gruesome fate.

Susuk

Rako Prijanto

Robby Ertanto

Ray Nayoan

The Mo Brothers

All the wealth of the current Indonesian horror film brought together in one eloquent work. A six-part omnibus with old magic, modern cannibalism, perverted lusts, wrong games, deadly cuisine and family ghosts.

Takut: Faces of Fear

Khavn

It made the censors in the Philippines stutter. The filmmaker, in his vision of the Apocalypse as experienced by three women locked in a ghostly house, was not only inspired by horror, but also by porn films. You have been warned.

Three Days of Darkness

Garin Nugroho

Complex and also personal contribution by the great Indonesian film maker to the Haunted House. This project is strongly based on his memories of the old Javan house in Jogjakarta where he grew up. His sources vary from the Koran to pictures of ghost sellers.

Transformation, Ghosts in Garin Nugroho’s House

Against the background of authentic Balinese rituals about death, life and ghosts, the film tells three stories about three different women. By the maker of Opera Jawa, who made a smaller scale Opera Bali with this. A rich film about both social and supernatural affairs.

Under the Tree

Mohamad Mohd Khalid

Exuberant horror comedy, shot in black-and-white to pay homage to older genre films. A satire on all kinds of things. Reporter gets stuck in a bewitched jungle village. Men disappear at full moon. A female spirit is said to be the cause, but there's also a ridiculous rebel army roaming the forests.

When the Full Moon Rises

David Lee

It could happen to you. You prefer to sit at your computer or chase your girlfriend and then your childhood friends start committing suicide one by one. When your girlfriend also starts to act strangely, you really have to do something. Then you find out that you see things the others can't see. Horror.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025