Buppha Rahtree

Don't be fooled by the title of this movie. "Rahtree: Flower Of The Night" has nothing whatsoever to do with trees or flowers. It is actually the name of the main character in this movie, Buppah Rahtree.

Buppah Rahtree is a smart, but troubled girl. Her past is ravaged by sexual abuse by her stepfather, and has had no friends all her life.

The movie starts out like a love story. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy tricks girl… OK, that's not really a love story, but that's how the first 20 minutes go. Ake Dunrongsup is a rich man's son who stalks Buppah, following her day and night. He even buys food for her and leaves it on her doorknob. After Buppah confronts Ake about this, Ake confesses his love for her. Anyway, Ake impregnates Buppah and heads off to further his studies in the United Kingdom. Little did Ake know that Buppah got an abortion and well, committed suicide.

After not receiving Buppah's rent for nearly a month, the evil landlady comes over and forces her way into the apartment and finds her already decomposing body. I know what you're thinking, no comedy yet? Well, the comedy begins when the Thai police come onto the scene. The sergeant in charge was pretty funny in his short but effective role as a bumbling cop. Many other comedic bits follow after this.

The spectrum of characters in this movie overshadows the main plot itself. A lazy shopkeeper and his retarded assistant were the ones producing most of the lighter moments of the movie. Other colorful characters included a couple of obese hairdressing transvestites, a band of fake monks, a clique of hip hop wannabes, the evil landlady and her husband, and a cute girl who helps her father sell rice porridge in a stall nearby.

Mehods of getting rid of Buppah's spirit included visits from the band of 'fake' Buddhist monks, a (real) Buddhist monk, Christian priests, and a Cambodian super monk. All of which didn't work.

Ake comes back to Thailand after not doing very well in his studies abroad. Oblivious to the fact that Buppah is dead, he heads over to her apartment after being kicked out of his own home by his father. Buppah appears in human form to him and welcomes him to stay with her. You'll have to watch the movie to find out what happens after this.

One major problem about this movie is that it is too repetitive. The same scares and actions happen more than once. It is as if you're seeing the same things happening over and over again, but with different cast members and situations. Also, the combination of horror and comedy can sometimes make a scene anti-climactic. The movie's storyline is overall a little too clichéd and weak.

The end of the movie didn't make sense to me, as it didn't really resolve anything. Maybe I was kind of disappointed that the movie had nothing to do with trees or flowers. Haha, but that's just me.

Watch for the "Exorcist" spoof where a Christian priest and a priest in training attempt to 'exorcise' Buppah.

When their relationship is over, a lonely woman wanting to be with the father of her baby turns to a decrepit apartment complex for solace only to die and subsequently haunt the building and the tenants waiting for him to return, forcing them to appease the ghost until then.

This was quite the fun if somewhat troubling effort. One of the main positives here is the fact that there's a rather intriguing and enjoyable premise to be found here that comes off as far more engaging than expected. From the beginning's stifled romance and the issues they have to overcome as well as the seeming reasons for them to get together which fuels her despair and loneliness even further, the initial set-up here is quite well-handled and makes for a really interesting way to get to the apartment and begin haunting it. Once she gets there, it gets quite fun with the initial discovery of the bodies in the room and the ineffectual manner of the police to remove them from the scene not only being quite chilling but generates some nice laughs as well, and with her haunting the kooky residents in the complex there's a lot to like here. The attacks are both genuinely funny to see play out yet rather chilling in concept, from scaring out the exorcist there cleansing the room to getting the jump on the paranormal investigators in the room and chasing them out, attacking the wife-beater and the others who come into the building, these give this one quite a lot to really like and give this one some chilling moments. Her freak-out that forces them to call him back is a wild, chaotic set-piece as well, and there's plenty to like about the finale where the failed exorcism attempt and their appeasement efforts to bring them back together while his outside efforts are the cause of the wild finale which gives this the kind of exciting and funny finish needed here. This is all the better given that these are done with the creepy-looking ghost and filled with some solid make-up effects alongside the laughs. These here give this one quite a lot to really enjoy, but it does have some flaws. One of the films' biggest issues is the seemingly glaring tone inconsistencies that occur throughout here, which oftentimes renders what happened quite jarring and problematic. The main issue here is the first half which is where their actual romance is going on, being so tender and innocent when compared to the more earnest attempts at scares and thrills or even the comedy that occurs in here in tone and execution that it feels so different enough to have been spliced in from another film altogether. It's done in such a relaxed, documentary-like style as compared to the frenzied, chaotic nature latter on making it too laid-back and dragging to start the movie off on. That also extends somewhat to a lot of the comedy, which is brought up in them meeting her for the first time but is continued on even further in the film with the tenants and their lives together which is sometimes funny yet not often enough to really land as the multitude of culturally-specific jokes and physical comedy doesn't come off as funny often enough when compared to the more genuinely approach to it's horror-based scenes. They make it a little longer than it needs to be, and while these are what really hurt it's not enough to outweigh the more impressive positives here.

Rated Unrated/: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and a mild sex scene.

RAHTREE: Flower of the Night is a Thai Horror-Comedy about a girl named Buppah Rahtree, who through a series of unfortunate events, ends up bleeding to death and haunting an apartment building full of weirdos.

Though the film is more comedy than horror, with lots of ridiculous laughs throughout, there are easily over a dozen scenes where the entire audience jumps. The director Yuthlert Sippapak is admittedly in love with the movie The Exorcist and pays a hilarious homage to it in this film. The director even pokes fun at himself when he has one of the characters in the movie complain that people are stupid because they only watch movies where a ghost chases someone down a hallway. Ha ha.

The director also hinted that he is working on a sequel, involving some bank robbers that end up in the room Rahtree haunts. Funny and genuinely scary with a sprinkling of original ideas, I'd highly recommend Rahtree. (8/10)