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In the cold open for Dead Talents Society, the new film by director John Hsu (2019’s Detention), a young woman enters hotel room 414. Bizarre events quickly add up, including a whole wall that is suddenly plastered with glamour pictures of a woman. Then the closet door creeps open and the woman from the picture emerges. She slowly begins walking backwards down the hall before going into a bone-cracking back bend, scurrying on all fours towards her terrified victim.

Before the scare can even sink in, the action pauses, revealing that this is footage being played on a supernatural talk show. The scary woman is revealed to be Catherine (Sandrine Pinna), arguably the most famous ghost in the world thanks to her incredibly effective urban legend. The talk show is made for and run by dead people, who compose a whole other world: a “scare the living” world of entertainment with its own rules and hierarchy.

“Dead Talents Society,” directed by John Hsu and co-written with Kun-Lin Tsai, is a refreshing and playful take on the horror-comedy genre that expertly blends elements of East Asian folklore with contemporary societal concerns. The film introduces us to The Rookie, a humble teenage ghost who is portrayed by Gingle Wang and who grapples with the existential prospect of being forgotten by her family age.

In a world where ghosts fight for visibility and importance, she must perfect the art of scaring the living to ensure her afterlife—a haunting license, if you will. This narrative concept sets the setting for a series of humorous misadventures and reflects our modern fixation with fame and social media.

As Hsu walks us through this strange afterlife, the film skillfully portrays modern youth’s pressures. It captures a generation grappling with the demands of visibility and the fear of obscurity, much like the...

John Hsu's Dead Talents Society is a cutesy and buoyant Taiwanese horror-comedy guaranteed to put a smile on your face. It's far funnier than frightening, with shades of Monsters, Inc., Beetlejuice, and The Influencer. John Hsu and Kun-Lin Tsai write the afterlife as a corporatized competition for virality, where your soul's worth is tied to its profit-grossing scare tactics. J-Horror influences inspire scare sequences, but the film is more interested in finding humor behind the scenes as "professionals" carefully architect each haunt's logistics. Imagine Sadako vs. Kayako but as a Christopher Guest sports comedy. Hsu values lighthearted entertainment over frights in a soulful way, which might not work for everyone, but ends with a climactic showdown event that brings everything together.

Gingle Wang stars as Cho Hsiao-lei, a novice spirit who is afraid of “glitching” into oblivion. If your living relatives forget your existence, you disappear like a bad...

Ghosts usually come with a fair bit of baggage in the movies: A tragic romance leading to an even more tragic suicide, maybe, or a howl for justice from a murder victim from beyond the grave. The protagonist of “Dead Talents Society” has no such tale attached to her untimely (and embarrassing) death, and this is where her problems begin. John Hsu’s frightfully entertaining Taiwanese horror-comedy imagines a world where the dead are just as beholden to the pressures of fame as the living, and an industry has grown around ambitious apparitions building their personal brands. Urban legends live forever, and forgotten ghosts literally disappear — so get out there and scare ‘em good, kid!

There’s obvious potential for media satire baked into the concept, and co-writer and director Hsu includes scenes of talk shows, ceremonies, and gala events where the undead stars come out to celebrate the afterlife awards season.