31 Days of Asian Horror: Goodnight DJ

Today I’m focusing on the Malaysian drama series, Goodnight DJ. I’m a bit unprepared to talk about the drama, as it was scheduled for later on in the month, but when I went to go start watching I saw that dreaded notification that the series would be pulled from Netflix towards the end of the month. I’ve found that no one has been talking about this drama, and wanted to make sure you have at least some time to check it out before it goes away.

And that’s the big problem with this drama, no one is talking about it. It’s not a country MyDramaList keeps in their systems, I haven’t seen any sorts of reviews on it past those “All about this Netflix series” info dump sites. Barely anything. So I wanted to talk about what I did find about the drama. Netflix only has two seasons of the drama up, but as I searched I found that the drama was actually pretty popular. Goodnight DJ is a horror drama that debuted in 2008 and ran for 11 seasons ending in 2011. The show's premise is about a radio program that tried to "bridge the living and the dead, taking on unresolved deaths, ghosts and ghouls as they bring the life to the stories that haunt the night" (source)

Netflix seems to only have the first two seasons of the drama, although it’s unclear if they are the first two of the series as Netflix has their year date based on when it was uploaded on the site. The first season’s premise and pacing is a bit more mild than the later season, the episodes are shorter and the ghost stories are a little less spooky. There’s no real gore and very few instances that are actually creepy - think stories closer to Are You Afraid of the Dark than Tales from the Crypt. The second season ramps up the scares a bit more and doubles the episode length, possibly because they had a bigger budget. The first season’s episodes, while tied in some way to the radio station, stray a bit more. Sometimes it’s because of a letter sent in, sometimes a connection with an employee. All of the stories focus on romantic relationships as their main tie.

The drama isn’t the best, I’m not going to lie to you. It’s campy, the pacing is weird, and the acting isn’t very good. But it has this nice simplicity to the episodes. They are very reminiscent of the mid 90’s shows you’d find on SciFi. Do you remember that show Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction? That’s the level I’m talking about. It reminded me of what I grew up watching in my preteens and I think the nostalgia of that kind of worked more for the show than anything else. The episodes do go by fairly fast, so while it wasn’t the best drama I’ve seen it was any easy binge. It might be a good watch for the family if you have some older kids but I would be warned that it does show it’s age.

Goodnight DJ is available on Netflix till the 26th of this month.

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