The Ghosts Must Be Crazy

Boris Boo, Mark Lee

This double bill calls itself a “hormedy”, an awful shortening of “horror comedy”. While it delivers a few laughs, it falls short on coming up with the scares.

The Day Off is the stronger offering here and it is a sequel of sorts to the Forest Got Ghost segment in 2009’s Where Got Ghost?.

Getai veterans John Cheng and Wang Lei reprise their roles as reservist soldiers and this time around, they are trying to “keng” (colloquialism for shirk) their way out of a military exercise by pretending to see ghosts.

There is also Chua Enlai as a fierce officer who sees through bulls***, David Bala as the tough and long-winded encik and Dennis Chew as a “sicklish chicken” (according to the subtitles) who also wants to get a day off.

They are familiar types for those who have undergone national service and the actors bring them to exaggerated life, particularly when Cheng and Wang banter and clown about.

One quibble: Even though this is the army, there was no need for everyone to be shouting out their lines the entire time.

Still, this was more enjoyable compared to The Ghost Bride, the directorial debut of Mark Lee. In it, Henry Thia plays the same sadsack loser role he does in every film. His luck turns around when he meets Lee, who advises him to borrow luck from the dead.

There is something mean-spirited about this piece which makes fun of a character who stammers and has Thia act out some ludicrous revenge fantasy on his ex-girlfriend when he wins the lottery.

The plot also hinges on a twist that does not quite make sense even if it does show that Lee will do anything for a laugh as an actor. The film also ends with some kind of preachy moral that is literally spelt out on screen.

If only “hormedy” meant a comedy on steroids.

(ST)