The Coffin Turns an Actual Thai Ritual into Supernatural Horror
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The Coffin is a dark tale of the effects of a ritual that claims to remove all of a person’s bad karma. Sound good? Lie down in the box.
Written by James “Crypticpsych” Lasome
September 4, 2011
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Release: August 30, 2011 (US DVD)
Written and Directed by: Ekachai Uekrongtham
Starring: Ananda Everingham as Chris
Karen Mok as Sue
Aki Shibuya as Mariko
Andrew Lin as Jack
Napakpapha Nakprasitte as May
Chris and Sue (Ananda Everingham and Karen Mok) have decided to take part in a Thai ritual in which thousands of people lie in coffins while a priest intones a special chant. The ritual supposedly removes all the bad karma a person has or removes it from a person who they are lying in the coffin in place of. Chris’s girlfriend, Mariko (Aki Shibuya), is hospitalized in a coma. Sue, on the other hand, is keeping her own lung cancer diagnosis secret from her fiancé, Jack (Andrew Lin). After the ritual’s conclusion, their problems seem to miraculously improve. However, it might not be possible for the ritual to just take their problems and karmic issues away without serious consequences for both them and those they love.
Filmed on location in Thailand and in actual temples, meditation caves, and cemeteries, The Coffin, a South Korean-Thai-Singaporean-American co-production, is a dark and creepy tale based on an actual live burial ritual. Filmed mostly in English and with a blue-tinted visual style, the movie works because it knows how to build atmosphere and tension through sound design and visuals as well as having a story that we care about.
First, the score and sound design of this are surprisingly immersive. The music of this movie is just about always appropriate, whether it be accentuating a jump scare or just building a general sense of foreboding and unease. There’s even a fantastic moment which has virtually no audio build up whatsoever, is genuinely shocking, and easily elicits the biggest sudden “what the hell?” of the movie.
Visually, the apparitions and imagery both our leads and their loved ones are subjected to are suitably disturbing and chilling. The performances also help lend in-coffin scenes a very real sense of claustrophobia. Most of all, though, is that The Coffin has a readily apparent sense of artistry and epic visuals. For instance, while Sue is in the coffin, she envisions herself standing in front of lung x-rays in a pitch-black room before her health issues are ever revealed. It’s a powerful scene both because of its simplicity and the questions about the character that it raises. Also, it’d be one thing to film people in coffins partaking in a ritual, but the added impact of hundreds of coffins and a giant stone idol watching over them drives home the power. These elements and others are all brilliant artistic choices that really stand out.
The other key that helps this movie is that Chris and Sue’s storylines are both interesting. Chris’s love for his girlfriend is believable, as are the lengths he goes to to uncover the truth about the aftermath of the ritual and prevent its lasting ripple effects. Sue, on the other hand, has to deal with what is a far more direct tragedy and is more haunted by it, seeming to be driven almost into madness while she searches for answers. Both storylines are engaging and work well… on their own.
The problem, though, is that the stories never dovetail or meet. Instead, the film flies back and forth between their stories, never having the two meet. While the two stories are interesting, it’s tough to build lasting tension when you suddenly swing the viewer back into the other story whenever the one they’re watching begins to pick up. While the film doesn’t suffer as badly for its dual storyline as something like Rubber, it definitely hurts the experience.
This story is pretty firmly in the “Asian Ghost Story”
cliché
wheelhouse. Sue’s story, is more of a classic haunting-type story,
tormenting her over mistakes. Chris, on the other hand, is faced with
the usual mouthless, long-haired Asian ghost while he’s in the coffin
and throughout the rest of the story. He then finds himself having to
find out more information about the ghost in an attempt to quiet it and
lay it to rest much like Sue hunts for info on the ritual. Sound
familiar? These are all plot elements that have been heard and seen
before in this subgenre. The Coffin doesn’t handle these
themes badly, but it still ends up feeling a big generic.
Overall, The Coffin is an average Asian supernatural thriller improved by great sound design and creepy visuals. While the two stories are interesting and engaging, they also feel stale within their subgenre and are hurt by the back-and-forth storytelling style of the movie. This film is worth a look, but it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before.
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