P

Showgirls meets Hammer Horror? There would be many ways to dismiss this British Thai movie, set in a seedy Bangkok go-go bar, and whose heroine turns into a nasty flesh-eating monster. Mainstream it's not, but for lovers of trashy independents it offers something of a curious mix that is almost a collector's item.

(The title of the film translates apparently as 'Ghost'; as a pun to fun-loving Thai viewers, P-Bar sounds like the Thai word for 'loony'.) Aaw is a nice pubescent girl in rural Thailand, doing her best to look after ailing grandmom. Granny is a white witch and passes on her magic to Aaw just in case it ever comes in handy. The rural photography is beautiful, especially when we consider the film was made on a budget of £180,000. The familiar tale of young girl hoodwinked into moving to the big city to support her elderly relative is part of Thailand's cultural malaise. She gets roped into prostitution of course, and it isn't long before she starts using the 'special powers' Grandma taught her.

Up to this point there is no serious suggestion of any horror elements. Ordinary Thai people tend to believe in magic as a day to day fact, even if they are devout Buddhists, and all we have seen is a pastoral tale, embellished with well-researched superstition and embroidered with lingering detail of initiation into the girlie bar trade.

Director Paul Spurrier spent five years working on the story to ensure that the seemingly trite details were authentic - research that apparently included not only looking into magic traditions but plenty of time interviewing sex workers to understand how they operate (he even cameos in the film as a bar owner). Some of the tales he told me after the film's Edinburgh Film Festival UK Premiere were both sad in their simplicity and amusing in their unexpectedness. A girl had told him how her clients had increased from 4 in a month to 30 the next month after she had gone back home to consult the shamen. The actual witchdoctor in the film was based on a character he met in N.E. Thailand; after answering many, many questions, the witchdoctor grabbed Paul's arm, pulling him ominously into the jungle, saying, "I have done something for you, now you must do something for me!" As the barefooted film director stumbled to keep up, the gravely stones underneath biting into his feet, the shamen looked up in surprised glee - "I always wanted to know that! I had been told that Westerners' feet are soft, and hurt when they walk barefoot in the forest! Now I know!" At one point in the making of the film, the director made himself unpopular with the local madam after asking one of the girls (who was about to go on a recruiting expedition) why she was happily misleading people in the way that she, years earlier, had been misled. Some critics have dwelt on the morality of the film, saying it is both exploitative and lukewarm in its condemnation. While that might be true, the madam answered, "You only hear from girls who think they've been tricked. You don't hear from the hundreds of girls who find rich western husbands working here and go on abroad to marry. I don't hear them complaining." Then there was the go-go girl who asked for a copy of the movie "to send back home to mom, as I don't have any nice pictures to show her where I work." Spurrier was ambivalent when questioned. He thought it was sad that girls were drawn into such a life, but that it was a fact of life for many, just like the magic traditions. It is also a backdrop for the story rather than a moral axe to grind, whether in protest or condoning.

The strange part is the sudden shift of genre into horror. There is no extensive use of CGIs - it tries, if anything, to remain true to the country's tradition (Thailand has about ten new ghost story films a year). It's simplicity recalls not only many other Asian attempts at horror but also early British films where we know the blood is not very real but choose to overlook such facts. That the abrupt change works quite well is a credit to the movie, reminding us more of the masterly film Audition than say the overladen From Dusk Till Dawn. Something evil has been growing inside of Aaw, because she has ignored the rules her grandmother taught her and she is becoming a puppet of the black magic she uses too readily. The transition from nightmares and drug-induced paranoia to the manifestation of evil is understated. Just as the sex-trade is accompanied by typical Thai modesty (no bare bosoms), the horror is shocking but not too shocking, almost as if it is meant to be 'entertaining' rather than genuinely upsetting.

The shortfalls are the derivative story lines, the overlong details of how to work in a go-go bar (especially when all the women look and sound almost identical) and the fact that this Thai-style, British-made movie is not well aimed at any easily identifiable western market (other, perhaps, than DVD). The light-hearted humour (girls exchanging insulting comments about a customer in Thai whilst giving the unsuspecting customer adoring glances and tones, or the giggly exchanges of how to butter-up a Westerner), and the fact that it is the first Thai horror film made by a British director, may endear it to all lovers of light-hearted gore. Most films seek either great artistic acclaim or the hugest profits possible; Spurrick may simply be someone who wants to earn a living as a filmmaker in Thailand. P won't make him a fortune, but it might make him enough to fund the next episode in what could even become a cult niche.

'P' is a film that explores the misuse of magic and when it can backfire and the need to resort to it to gain an upper hand over rivals or people who have hurt you. This is a strange film to have a horror theme but that is not to say it doesn't work - it works quite well in the surroundings the film has set up.

The film tells the story of Dau, a poor girl living in rural Thailand whose grandmother has taught her the arts of witchcraft. There are three rules apparently that can make a spell backfire on the person if they break them:

1. Never cross under a clothes line 2. Never eat raw meat 3. You can share the knowledge of the spells but do not accept any form of payment

Dau goes to work in a brothel in Bangkok in order to make money to send to her sick grandmother and ends up being in the usual competition with the other girls. So she decides to put some of her useful magic knowledge to good (or bad depending on how you want to look at it) use to gain an upperhand on some of them.

The performances in the film are pretty decent with the leading actress being very convincing in terms of the cute girl trapped in a world she doesn't really want to be in. The film also gives light social commentary on the lives of these girls who work in such places - they are in it for the money and it also shows how foreigners (mainly white guys) come in simply just to be entertained and to have sexual acts with them. In fact, the bar the girls work in is a bar for foreigners.

Out of the three rules, the first one doesn't really make sense to me - the other two made more sense as the film progressed but I don't see how going under a clothes line will cause any harm - but if it is the rules it is the rules.

The film perhaps gets less scary once you know what is going to happen with Dau once the supernatural elements kick in and it sort of goes into slasher territory but it is part of the fun. In fact, the first 40 mins or so feels more like the film is a story about a sex worker than a horror film but it spends time developing the context of its story so that was pretty well done.

It is a good film if you're a horror fan and it is weird to see this combined with elements of prostitution in its story - some parts don't work as well but overall it is pretty solid.

It's hard to know what to expect when going into a movie simply called P! Based on it's appearance and my history with Thai cinema I assumed it would be yet another bland ghost story but I was mistaken.

The movie tells the story of a young girl living out in rural Thailand who struggling to make ends meet because of her sick grandmother. She is sent through to Bangkok for work but finds herself exploited within a seedy strip club. Becoming increasingly stressed she sets about using the magic taught to her by her grandmother, but things get gradually out of control.

I found myself interested early on, the film looks great and the performances are stronger than you'd expect for a Thai film. I was engaged in this poor girls plight and curious which direction it was going to go in.

When things kicked into gear I was met with both marvel and disappointment. The ideas were there, some of the visual effects were there, sadly the writing badly let it down.

When the credits rolled I was sad that once again a potentially good film had been squandered by a poor ending. It's not THAT bad, but to keep up with the rest of the film it needed to be something special and it simply wasn't.

Regardless P is an enjoyable enough Thai horror with great ideas, competence both in front of and behind the camera just bit of a weak finale.

The Good:

Decent looking antagonist

Solid story

The Bad:

Cutaway deaths

Disappointing ending

This is not exactly a horror movie, it's more a sad story about a farmer girl who goes to the big town (Bangkok) and loses her way. This young girl is a nice person with a warm heart, the reason she leaves the camp is because her grandmother is ill and to move to the city is the only chance for getting a job. But she is cheated and must be a sexy dancer in a club for foreigners, so she will know the worst of the urban life very soon. The worst of the urban life and the worst of the rural life (the poor and wrong education she has received from her grandmother, mainly based on superstition and black magic) will destroy her innocence and a terrible monster will grow up inside her. Yes, you can call it monster, spirit, ghost... but for me it's a symbol of her lost innocence. You will find scary moments (this "ghost" looks terrible in some concrete moments) but I insist the film is more a drama than a horror movie in a strict sense, and maybe this is the reason some public can feel disappointed. In my opinion the first half is excellent but the second half is not so good although it still keeps the interest until the end. Sad, nice and with a great soundtrack. It's not perfect but I recommend it.

P is an excellent supernatural horror film from Thailand. The story is about a young girl who must leave her rural life for the city of Bangkok, in order to help her ailing grandmother. Upon arrival, she discovers that she must work as a dancer / prostitute to survive. When her co-workers begin to sabotage her efforts, she falls back on her grandmother's magical training to get even. Unfortunately, she ignores her grandmother's warnings, and drifts into the dark side of magic, leading to demonic possession, murder, and mutilation. A frightening cautionary tale...