31 Days of Asian Horror: Dearest Sister (2016)

Today is a freebie day on my schedule, and I purposely looked for something a bit different to add to my mix. While browsing Shudder, Dearest Sister has always caught my eye but never realized that it was a horror film Laos. It seemed like the perfect time to give it a try. I went into the movie knowing absolutely nothing about it and was pleasantly surprised. The premise of the movie is fairly simple and it spends a large portion of the film building up to the main story. A village girl named Nok (Amphaiphun Phimmapunya) travels to Vientiane, the home of her rich cousin Ana (Tot Vilouna) who has begun to lose her eyesight at the request of her family and Ana’s husband. Nok is there to provide support for her as she copes with her eyesight diminishing, and it’s there she finds out that Ana can see ghosts and is tormented by them.

I want to keep most of the review spoiler-free because I really want people to watch this film with very little knowledge like I did. Because of that, it’s hard to fully deep dive into the movie but a do think it’s necessary. The plot takes some time to build, and a lot of the movie we are spent not knowing what is going on, and it sets up a nice slow burn that really doesn’t start to ramp up until the end of the movie. I didn’t know where the movie was taking me, and by the end it wasn’t what I thought. I really enjoyed the payoff at the end, though, and found that even with the slow build and in the quieter non-horror moments I was still heavily engrossed by the relationship between the two. Nok comes in as almost a stranger to Ana. They are opposites in all regard, Nok living a life of poverty rooted in spirituality and Ana a life of luxury. The way the two interact throughout the movie was intriguing and really came to a head at the end. The movie is much more than the aspect of Ana seeing the ghosts, and more about how change and money can affect people - whether good or bad. The movie focuses its creepiness more towards the tension and atmosphere of the tone, thus the horror is relatively low. I think this would be a good movie for those who may be a bit more scared, or don’t want to watch something gorier or that focuses on jump scares.

When I was researching the movie after watching, I found that the story was directed by Laotian American director Mattie Do. She is not only the first to direct a Lao horror film, but she is also the country's only female director. Do started her horror journey back in 2012 with the low-budget film, Chanthaly. I also ended up watching Chanthly directly after watching Dearest Sister because I was intrigued by her work. While for a lot of the production you can feel the low budget, the movie overall had a nice backbone and for a first-time direction (that was shot at Do’s home and on a $5,000 budget) I thought the story was good. The movie can be found on Do’s YouTube channel, with subs, here. It’s already hard being a female in the industry, and to top that off with being the only one in your country it puts more pressure on her. She’s a pioneer for that, and I look forward to watching more of her work.

Senses of Cinema has a great interview with Do that talks more about her background, her creative process, and her thoughts on her position as a director that is putting Laos on the map as a contender for film. I highly suggest checking it out.

Dearest Sister is currently streaming on Shudder.

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