April 21, 2026
FILM: A USEFUL GHOST
DIRECTED BY: RATCHAPOOM BOOMBUNCHACHOKE
STARRING: DAVIKA HOORNE, WISARUT HOMHUAN, WANLOP RUNGKUMJAD
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Can a home appliance have a mind of its own? I think this is highly unlikely but then I’m generally a skeptic. Based on the events in the film A Useful Ghost, an inanimate electrical object may very well house the spirit of someone in your life who has passed away. Yes, the concept is as outlandish as it sounds but writer/director Ratchapoom Boombunchachoke has created a story which follows that absurd concept and turns it into something deeper and more melancholy. Early in the Thai film, a self-described “academic ladyboy” wakes up finding a vacuum cleaner leaving dust at night. He also hears the sound of unexplained coughing. When he contacts the manufacturing company of the cleaner, a man named Krong, claiming to be the repairman arrives within seconds. He begins telling the “ladyboy” that the factory which made the device is haunted.
The film then flashes back to the recent past when a man dies at the factory while having a coughing fit. His ghost enters another appliance which can also move in strange ways and talk. It could be that the death was caused by an inordinate amount of dust throughout the city, poisoning many of its residents.
These early scenes are pretty funny and yes, very absurd. For instance, a vacuum cleaner is possessed by the spirit of Nat, the recently deceased wife of a character named March. After the device is hilariously told it must wait for visiting hours to see March in a hospital room, they have more than one…interesting, “sexual” encounter. The cleaner’s movement across a room mimics that of a house cleaning rhumba or one of those AI delivery machines that brings dinners, drinks, and other foods to people in major cities such as Los Angeles these days. On one level, you might think this is what Boombunchachoke is commenting on: We’ve moved into an era where electronic devices can do some pretty amazing things without being directly controlled by a human being.
Eventually though, the story becomes more focused on the ghosts that are inhabiting these appliances. They are also able to be transformed into human-like forms. We begin to see, for example, Nat as a full human body. Her issue, and many other ghosts’ issues, is based on a fear that humans will forget about them. In fact, locals begin to administer electro shock therapy to help people move on rather than grieve for extended periods of time. The ghosts represent a helpful futuristic AI that also develops its own set of needs.
The ghosts then are divided between the good and bad. Nat and others, for instance, are so upset with the living that they begin taking revenge on them, including invading their dreams. This leads to some in-fighting between both sets of ghosts. This considerably changes the tone of the film which begins as an almost whimsical tale to something more horrifying. That’s too bad because Boombunchachoke really had me going for a good first third of the film. I get his messages and interesting concept but the fun dissipates.
A Useful Ghost, which was Thailand’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar earlier this year, also runs a too long 130 minutes and I felt it after an hour. Given this, it is surprising that there are a couple of characters’ stories that are left baffling and underdeveloped. “Academic Ladyboy,” also known as Moss, has a lover named Ted and a son but they’re strangely missing from the later sections of the film. Moss also goes through an unclear transition in association with repairman Krong. Clearly there are elements to this narrative that probably require more than one viewing but would the experience really change? The disappointing later sequences make me less than likely to want to find out.
A Useful Ghost played at the Chicago International Film Festival last fall. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
FILM: A USEFUL GHOST
DIRECTED BY: RATCHAPOOM BOOMBUNCHACHOKE
STARRING: DAVIKA HOORNE, WISARUT HOMHUAN, WANLOP RUNGKUMJAD
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Can a home appliance have a mind of its own? I think this is highly unlikely but then I’m generally a skeptic. Based on the events in the film A Useful Ghost, an inanimate electrical object may very well house the spirit of someone in your life who has passed away. Yes, the concept is as outlandish as it sounds but writer/director Ratchapoom Boombunchachoke has created a story which follows that absurd concept and turns it into something deeper and more melancholy. Early in the Thai film, a self-described “academic ladyboy” wakes up finding a vacuum cleaner leaving dust at night. He also hears the sound of unexplained coughing. When he contacts the manufacturing company of the cleaner, a man named Krong, claiming to be the repairman arrives within seconds. He begins telling the “ladyboy” that the factory which made the device is haunted.
The film then flashes back to the recent past when a man dies at the factory while having a coughing fit. His ghost enters another appliance which can also move in strange ways and talk. It could be that the death was caused by an inordinate amount of dust throughout the city, poisoning many of its residents.
These early scenes are pretty funny and yes, very absurd. For instance, a vacuum cleaner is possessed by the spirit of Nat, the recently deceased wife of a character named March. After the device is hilariously told it must wait for visiting hours to see March in a hospital room, they have more than one…interesting, “sexual” encounter. The cleaner’s movement across a room mimics that of a house cleaning rhumba or one of those AI delivery machines that brings dinners, drinks, and other foods to people in major cities such as Los Angeles these days. On one level, you might think this is what Boombunchachoke is commenting on: We’ve moved into an era where electronic devices can do some pretty amazing things without being directly controlled by a human being.
Eventually though, the story becomes more focused on the ghosts that are inhabiting these appliances. They are also able to be transformed into human-like forms. We begin to see, for example, Nat as a full human body. Her issue, and many other ghosts’ issues, is based on a fear that humans will forget about them. In fact, locals begin to administer electro shock therapy to help people move on rather than grieve for extended periods of time. The ghosts represent a helpful futuristic AI that also develops its own set of needs.
The ghosts then are divided between the good and bad. Nat and others, for instance, are so upset with the living that they begin taking revenge on them, including invading their dreams. This leads to some in-fighting between both sets of ghosts. This considerably changes the tone of the film which begins as an almost whimsical tale to something more horrifying. That’s too bad because Boombunchachoke really had me going for a good first third of the film. I get his messages and interesting concept but the fun dissipates.
A Useful Ghost, which was Thailand’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar earlier this year, also runs a too long 130 minutes and I felt it after an hour. Given this, it is surprising that there are a couple of characters’ stories that are left baffling and underdeveloped. “Academic Ladyboy,” also known as Moss, has a lover named Ted and a son but they’re strangely missing from the later sections of the film. Moss also goes through an unclear transition in association with repairman Krong. Clearly there are elements to this narrative that probably require more than one viewing but would the experience really change? The disappointing later sequences make me less than likely to want to find out.
A Useful Ghost played at the Chicago International Film Festival last fall. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime.