Thailand. 2021.
Crew
Director – Paween Purijitpanya, Screenplay – Vasudhorn Piyaromna, Paween Purijitpanya & Tossaphon Riantong, Story – Paween Purijitpanya & Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, Producers – Vanridee Pongsittisak & Paween Purijitpanya, Photography – Pithai Smithsuth, Music – Bill Hempstapat, Visual Effects – Kantana Animation Studios Co., Ltd., Makeup/Prosthetic Effects – Second Skin Studio, Production Design – Toey Jaruvateekul. Production Company – Jorkwang Films.
Cast
Thanapob Leeratanakachorn (Dr. Cheewee ‘Wee’ Prometheus), Paris Intarakomalyasut (Dr. Arjong ‘Gla’ Soonyata), Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich (Mai), Suquan Bulakul (Wee’s Mother), Pearachanee Siralert (Gla’s Mother)
Plot
At Rataanara Hospital, two doctors Wee and Gla debate about the existence of ghosts. Gla believes he saw his father’s ghost shortly after his death. The two set up a laboratory in a disused section of the hospital and set about to scientifically determine the existence of ghosts. Wee’s hospitalised mother dies and he believes he sees her saying something to him but cannot determine what. In the aftermath of her death, Wee decides he will kill himself and cross over to try and communicate with Gla from the other side. Gla refuses to allow Wee to do that and during the argument Gla kills himself instead. Afterwards, Wee tries to do everything he can to get Gla to communicate with him. He finds that it is only in scenes of extreme emotional distress – when he is going to throw himself from the building or cut his finger off in a guillotine – that Gla acts to prevent this. Wee then decides he must find a way to allow Gla to make an actual appearance.
There have been a small number of films about the attempts to scientifically explore The Afterlife. The most well-known of these was Flatliners (1990) and there have been others such as Brainstorm (1983), The Breakthrough (1994), Einstein’s God Model (2016) and The Discovery (2017). Ghost Lab is a Thai-made venture into the subject.
Ghost Lab takes a little time to reach its strengths. Director Paween Purijitpanya gets a great jump out of us early on in the show, an incredibly uncanny scene where Thanapob Leeratanakachorn and Paris Intarakomalyasut are beside a vending machine and a ghost appears to them – a figure all in black making jerky bowing movements as it progresses across the room.
There is something quite chilling when Thanapob Leeratanakachorn suddenly announces he is going to kill himself for the sake of the experiment and the two guys heatedly argue over who is going to do the deed, which arrives at a shocking end of the scene. The most intense scenes though come after this where Thanapob is being driven to desperate ends to try and get Paris to manifest – including throwing himself off the roof of the hospital only to be held back as an invisible force grabs his tie, or about to cut his pinkie finger using a guillotine (a scene that has a brutal callback later in the film).
What also gets you is just how much both characters step way over ethical lines in furtherance of their experiment – Paris thinks about dating a girl dying of cancer so that she will attach to him and then come back; both consider killing themselves; Thanapob lies to Paris’s family and hides what happened from his girlfriend (Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich). There is a nastily manipulative swing that things take during the latter section, although the eventual supernatural retribution that occurs seems by the book.
Ghost Lab was the second feature-length film for director Paween Purijitpanya. He had previously made the full-length horror film Body (2007) and went on to make the SF mini-series Tomorrow and I (2024), as well as episodes of the Thai horror anthologies Phobia (2008) and Phobia 2 (2009).
Trailer here