Baan phi pop 3 (1990)

... aka: บ้านผีปอบ 3
... aka: Baan Phee Pob 3
... aka: Ban phi pob 3
... aka: Ban phi pop 3
... aka: Goblin House 3
... aka: Home Ogre 3
... aka: House of Phi Pop 3
... aka: House of Pop 3, The
... aka: House of Pop's Ghost 3, The

Directed by:
ศรีสวัสดิ์ (Saiyon Srisawat)

Most of the same actors from THE HOUSE OF POP (1989) and THE HOUSE OF POP 2 (1990) are back yet again playing the same characters. Whoever played the village leader's daughter isn't because the character was killed off but the more notable omissions this time out are Ekapan Banleurit as the doctor and Trirak Rakkarndee as the sweet village girl / love interest. Seeing how they were pretty much downgraded to side characters in Part 2 and given little to do, I suppose that's just as well. Two other actors have been substituted into equivalent roles to take their place. Everyone else is here though, for better or worse, including the village leader, his assistant, the toothless old man and the (ugh) three ponytailed bumbling idiots from both of the earlier ones, plus a few of the new characters added in #2, including the woman the assistant has the hots for, her brother and both the main older ghost lady and her younger alter ego. Things also open exactly as the first two entries do: With a murder and the discovery of the gutless corpse by villagers.

In the previous film, pop ghost Ya Yip (Natanee Sitthisaman) was sunk in a bog by a witch doctor but now she's gotten out and is back to running around feasting on innards. After killing her first victim, she kills a camper while another man, who turns out to be a corrupt village sorcerer, lends her a hand by killing some other crazed man who eats raw meat. As more bodies turn up, the village leader and others try to map out a plan of how to handle things. The old man puts the three idiots through a training session that involves weights and running, presumably to get them in shape for a battle against the ghost, even though that never really happens.

A couple of city doctors and their female friend arrive to open up a clinic so they can examine the locals, who don't generally receive any traditional medical care. As they're driving around, they stumble upon Ya Yip crawling around in a field clutching her stomach in pain. They load her up in their jeep and take her back into the village where she chases around the villagers when the doctors aren't looking but is back to feigning pain when they are. Sometimes, the villagers try to catch her using various methods, including giant mouse traps loaded with guts, but most of the time they just run amok screaming their heads off.

This turned out to be such a chaotic, irritating, horribly-edited, mile-a-minute mess that I was forced to go back and boost the ratings of the first two simply because they aren't nearly as bad by comparison. You can even tell from the half-assed opening sequence that they rushed this one. This is less atmospheric than the previous entries, doubles down on the absolute worst qualities of the first two minus any kind of reprieve, doesn't have gore like the second entry and doesn't even any laser effects like the first. What this does have in excess is a bunch of groan-worthy gags, most of which we already saw in the first two films, like the ladder trick and the bit with the overturned baskets. People run into doors, run into the sides of buildings, fall out of trees and open windows, fall into holes and the river, run circles around homes, etc. frantically trying to escape the phi pop chasing after them with her arms outstretched. That's essentially the entire movie. It's like the worst fuckin' Looney Tunes episode ever.

The plot is shapeless and aimless, the score is mostly stolen music from Halloween, the sound effects (like the running ghost suddenly stopping accompanied by the sound of a car brakes) are grating and the lack of continuity is diabolical. Making this even harder to sit through is the absence of any kind of focal point. There are a zillion characters crammed in here and you don't even know who's who, what they're doing or how they even got to wherever they are half the time. A subplot involving the sorcerer, who "cures" villagers by whipping them with a stick and is despised by his wife and daughter (whom he beats), not only feels out of place but goes nowhere. Attempted commentary about modern society encroaching on the village whether they like it or not is pretty much nullified in this context.

Just a few minor positives here to even talk about. First off, the actor playing the village leader (who kind of reminds me of Ching-Ying Lam) has been one of the bright spots throughout this series, so hat's off to him. And there's an amusing bit poking fun at the sarong bathing scenes in the first two movies. And, finally, some people may like the bicycle with built-in flotation devices and a propeller so it can float on the water or fly in the air. That's really about it.

The rest of this series falls out of our time frame here so I likely won't be watching them. And I'm not horribly upset about that to be perfectly honest. The House of Pop 4 (1991) features Ya Yip and the sorcerer in cahoots, which is implied at the end of this one. The House of Pop 5 isn't considered part of the official series because it was made by another company hoping to cash in with their own knock-off series. To avoid confusion, they jumped ahead to The House of Pop 6, which was also released in 1991. Following that were a boat load more. Actress Sitthisaman was still playing Ya Yip as recently as 2011 in the film Phi Pop Reformation.

★

Baan phi pop 2 (1990)

... aka: บ้านผีปอบ 2
... aka: Baan Phee Pob 2
... aka: Ban phi pob 2
... aka: Ban phi pop 2
... aka: Goblin House 2
... aka: Home Ogre 2
... aka: House of Phi Pop
... aka: House of Pop, The
... aka: House of Pop's Ghost, The

Directed by:
ศรีสวัสดิ์ (Saiyon Srisawat)

Following up immediately after the events of THE HOUSE OF POP (1989), this takes place in the same village on the same sets, features the same actors playing the same characters and was likely made by the same director and crew. I'd even tell you who some of those people were if I spoke Thai! We open with about five minutes worth of flashbacks to the first film cut through the credits to bring us back up to speed. At the end of the first (spoiler alert), things were left up in the air after the gut-eating grandma transferred the phi pop ghost to the village chief's nut job / murderous daughter by puking white foam into her mouth. However, no one was around to witness any of that and only found granny's skeleton. As far as everyone's concerned, the phi pop is gone and they can all breath easy. They'll soon find out otherwise, especially after the hunter from the first film is attacked, killed and has his organs pulled out and consumed.

After the mercenary's corpse is discovered by the side of the road, Dr. Ret (Ekapan Banleurit) and Plapleung (Trirak Rakkarndee) report to the village chief. He, of course, has no clue his own daughter, Kradeung, is actually the culprit even though she's recently been behaving strangely; alternating between being bedridden / deathly ill and running around teasing / trying to seduce pretty much every guy in the village. The chief's assistant, whose name is (I think) Chuchuan (Tongchai Prasongsanti), and the three fraidy-cat villagers from the first film are still around to do dumb things, drink, mug and run around scared. The really old man is back, as well, for some denture comedy and to react to Kradeung's seduction antics by bolting through the village in exaggerated hyper-speed until he collapses. A minor side story finds Chuchuan falling in love with an equally-goofy woman who's just moved to the village with her family.

A young woman fresh from getting an abortion (!) hobbles around at night clutching her crotch and finally collapses by some large clay pots. She begs an older woman passing by to help her. Instead, the lady strangles her, reaches her hand inside her stomach, rips out her intestines and starts eating them. That'll teach her! This being a sequel, I guess they decided to go bigger as this has not one, but two, phi pop ghosts. The older phi pop is named Ya Yip and is played by Natanee Sitthisaman, who'd reprise this same role in most of the eleven (!!) other sequels from here on out. It's also worth noting that the original only had a couple of kills and this follow-up already has two in the first 15 minutes and both are gorier than anything seen in the first. But if you think this is going to correct what didn't work in the previous film, and adjust the horror / comedy balance so it doesn't feel so out of whack, you're setting yourself up for disappointment here.

The serious horror that marks the beginning is not at all indicative of what follows. The doctor and girlfriend characters, who had some sweet moments in the original and helped level the comedy a bit, are both pushed aside as the not-particularly-funny bumbling idiot characters take center stage. This then deteriorates into a bunch of silly comic set pieces. I don't mind physical comedy and slapstick as long as it's clever and choreographed well but that's not typically what we get here. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that about half of this movie consists of frantic people running around in the jungle. Even more disappointingly, this recycles a lot of the same gags already seen in the first. The idiots are still spying on women bathing in sarongs hoping to get a peak. And still running around throwing their hands in the air, climbing up trees and screaming (all sped-up) at any ghost sighting. And still trying to cop a feel, this time up through some floor boards. I guess at least this time they didn't break into a home beforehand.

Little is done with the two female phi pop ghosts, though they do encounter each other a few times. We get a little fighting and some really clumsy (and understandably brief) wire work as the younger rips out the guts of the old one. Toward the end, we get the phi pop's chasing both each other and the rest of the cast around for what feels like an eternity. The chases are almost always fast-forwarded but in one instance a single shot of the ghost running past people is put in slow motion and lasts almost two minutes! There's also a witch doctor character who has a talking parrot and a walking, talking skeleton, but he's only really around to clue our heroine in to how to get rid of the ghost, which involves impaling it with candles.

Since Thai audiences couldn't get enough phi pop, a second sequel, Baan phi pop 3 / THE HOUSE OF POP 3 (1990), was released the same year. And there were other 1990 phi pop movie releases, including Phee pop hian ("Pop Is Strong Enough") which also featured Banleurit and Rakkarndee.

★★

Baan phi pop (1989)

... aka: บ้านผีปอบ
... aka: Baan Phee Pob
... aka: Baan phi pop 1
... aka: Ban phi pob
... aka: Ban phi pop
... aka: Goblin House
... aka: Home Ogre
... aka: House of Phi Pop
... aka: House of Pop, The
... aka: House of Pop's Ghost, The

Directed by:
ศรีสวัสดิ์ (Saiyon Srisawat)

Breaking apart the original Thai title leaves us with บ้าน (home) + ผี (ghost) + ปอบ (pop). We all know what home, ghost and pop are, but the pop here isn't a light explosive sound, or Pepsi or Mt. Dew, it's a word for a specific type of ghost. The "pop" or "phi pop" or "phi pob" or "phi poeb" (I've seen it spelled many different ways) is a big part of Thai folklore that first originated from an old legend about a Prince interested in magic who learned how to transfer his spirit to other human or animal bodies to control them. As the story goes, the Prince's sneaky servant learned how to perform the same magic spell and attempted to take over the identity of the Prince for his stature and wealth. After losing a fight over the Prince's body, the servant's body was destroyed and the servant was then cursed to be a drifting, parasitic entity who could only temporarily possess a host body before being forced to move on. The "temporary" part is due to the spirit devouring the intestines of whomever it occupies from within. While the pop shares a similar characteristic for possessing humans with other ghosts it is differentiated by its craving for raw meat and organs; most specifically those yummy human chitterlings!

If I've learned one thing doing recent research into Thai culture, it's that belief in ghosts is widespread. Wikipedia lists well over 30 different Thai ghosts, each with their own specific characteristics, though the actual number is over 100. An annual Ghost Festival is held every year in the small Northeastern town of Dansai. Ghosts are frequently blamed by villagers for both human and livestock deaths, as well as illness, bad fortune and a variety of criminal behavior. If "The Devil made me do it!" here in the U.S., then I guess "The [fill in the blank with evil ghost] made me do it!" is the Thai equivalent. Each year, police have to investigate multiple haunting reports as well as multiple "mysterious death" reports attributed to ghosts. Just last year, the Royal Thai Police Force were dispatched to a village located in the Amnat Charoen province to keep locals from panicking after months of phi pop sightings.

Not surprisingly, ghost movies tend to be one of the most popular box office draws there, too. Even though most of their pre-2000 ghost movies never made it to the U.S. and still aren't available in English, some of their better more recent films have actually stood a chance at international success. A film like Shutter (2004) can succeed through word of mouth to the point where even Hollywood has to stop and take notice. Of course they then decide to finance a terrible remake to cash in, but even that practice prompts people to seek out the original for comparison purposes and the original still benefits. The same cannot be said for the older films, which have pretty much just been allowed to languish in obscurity.

Baan phi pop / บ้านผีปอบ / The House of Pop (and recipient of a zillion different English-translated titles depending on where you look) appears to be one of the very first films to specifically tackle the phi pop ghost. It may actually be the very first but don't quote me on that. According to the invaluable ThaiWorldView, the film was basically disregarded as a cheap, disposable B-movie in urban areas like Bangkok but was hugely successful playing in rural areas where people would be more prone to believe in such things. It was shot in a week on 16mm with no sound (which was all dubbed in later) on a budget equivalent to around 12,000 U.S. dollars.

The film opens on a wonderfully atmospheric note; a note that the rest of the film is unable to sustain, with opening credit music featuring bells, a heartbeat, howling and chanting. We then get a looking-up-from-the-ground POV shot as a young man digs a hole in a field accompanied by the sounds of a wailing woman giving birth. Once the baby is born, two older women remove the umbilical cord and put it in a clay pot, which they then plan on burying in the hole. This isn't part of some symbolic birth ritual, it's a way to keep the dreaded phi pop ghost, who'd view the cord the same way a 5-year-old would a Pixy Stick, away. Before the pot can even make it to the field, a hand busts through the floor boards and grabs it. One of the men manages to get it back and goes to bury it and that's the last time anyone sees him alive. The following morning, the pot is found empty and the man is found dead with his chest ripped opened and some of his vitals missing. The villagers now know what they're up against.

Because the ghost needs a human host to do its dirty work and thus is already inhabiting someone's body, most of the male villagers start accusing an old spinster usually referred to as Yay (or "Granny") of being the culprit. Even though she's elderly and sickly, her consistently odd behavior and bad habit of wandering the woods at night makes her suspect. Kindly, beautiful village girl Plapleung (Trirak Rakkarndee) doesn't listen and continues to take care of the old lady but, in this case, the men happen to be right. A group of big city physicians, led by Dr. Khun Ret (Ekapan Banleurit), show up to administer medical care to the locals. While camping in the woods one night, they're awakened by strange howling sounds, go to investigate and run across Yay out licking her lips looking for meat. But, as she always does, Plapleung shows up to take the old woman home.

Fed up, the village chief and some of his goons go find a white-bearded exorcist to take care of the problem. He shows up at Yay's, throws something on her and starts beating her with a stick. Not yet believing in local superstitions, Khun Ret and one of his colleagues stop them before they can complete the ceremony. Later on that night, the exorcist is killed and has his guts pulled out and eaten. After his death, a mercenary is retrieved to try to help (hint: he doesn't) and additional conflicts arise in the form of a love triangle. The young doctor falls in love with the nice / pretty village girl, but the village chief's daughter also has the hots for him... and is something of a psycho! During one scene, she lures the doctor's female assistant into the woods and then stabs her to death.

While this is somewhat enjoyable, far too much time is spent following around the chief's bumbling assistant (Tongchai Prasongsanti) and a trio of "funny," cowardly, drunken (I think), long-haired village idiots. They joke and laugh and mug, run around frantically at the first sign of horror in scenes sped up to try to make them funnier and get on each other's shoulders, wrap themselves in a sheet and fake being a tall ghost to scare someone. As was typical in the 80s, some of the "boys will be boys" antics don't really fly nowadays as comedy, especially a scene where they break into the village chief's home and one proceeds to try to feel up the daughter while she's sleeping.

Amazingly, this silly film laid the groundwork for one of the most enduring franchise's in Thai film history. There were at least 12 official sequels made from 1989 to 2011, along with who knows how many ripoffs and offshoots. It's so confusing that I first ended up with what I thought was this movie which instead ended up being something called Phan Phi Pob 1 from 1991, which also has a bunch of sequels. Hopefully we'll work all of this out here eventually. No English version was ever released but it wouldn't be the worst thing ever if one were just for the cultural significance factor.

★★