‘A Useful Ghost’ REVIEW: The Dead Will Never Be Forgotten
‘A Useful Ghost’ REVIEW: The Dead Will Never Be Forgotten
Davika Horne as ‘Nat’ in A Useful Ghost | Courtesy of Best Friend Forever, 185 Films, Haut Les Mains, Momo Film Co., Mayana Films, Kliff Studios, N8 and Cinema22
This review contains some spoilers.
In another world, there were good and bad ghosts, and there were also useful ones.
In Asian culture, the concept of death is not the means to an end. It continues to linger on to the earthly world. In Thai mythology, the mae nak (แม่นาก) is a recurring character and it is often immortalized in many films including the 2013 film Pee Mak, starring Davika Horne and Mario Maurer. Twelve years later, Horne would later return to play as the same mae nak character — this time, not as a comedic caricature of the legend but as a mere vacuum cleaner - A Useful Ghost to be exact.
On a normal day in an unnamed city in Thailand, a series of redevelopment projects around the city causes a dust epidemic which included tearing down shophouses for a new shopping mall. An “academic ladyboy” (Wisarut Homhuan) purchases a vacuum cleaner to clean up his space, the vacuum mechanic tells the fable of the cursed factory.
March (Witsarut Himmarat) and Nat as a vacuum cleaner in A Useful Ghost | Courtesy of Best Friend Forever, 185 Films, Haut Les Mains, Momo Film Co., Mayana Films, Kliff Studios, N8 and Cinema22
The story begins with the son of a factory heir and widow, Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon; known for her appearances in Happy Old Year and Suddenly, It’s Magic) named March (Witsarut Himmarat) who had lost his wife due to a respiratory disease along with her unborn child. She would then return to the living world as a vacuum cleaner to get back with her husband.
The aristocratic family’s conservative culture however, does not approve of March’s continued contact with Nat. In Theravada Buddhism, death often meant departure from the previous world to another. At one point, the monks tried to stop Nat from reuniting with her husband followed by the police arresting the vacuum cleaner and later disassembled. Under desperation, Suman later tries to confine March into electro shock therapy to alter memories of his wife.
Determined in her desire to fulfil her lifelong mission to have a happy family, Nat visits Suman in her dreams. Having no cards to deal with as the closure of the factory will lead her to nowhere, she finally gave in to Nat’s demands. Things will later take a dystopian turn as the aristocratic in-laws as well as Thailand’s fictional Prime Minister Dr. Paul and his staff finally made a pact with Nat in their agenda to control their narrative and to take back what was theirs. Nat’s in-laws reopened the factory and turned over a “new leaf” by feeding the workers breakfast before work.
Well not exactly.
An electro-therapy session in A Useful Ghost | Courtesy of Best Friend Forever, 185 Films, Haut Les Mains, Momo Film Co., Mayana Films, Kliff Studios, N8 and Cinema22
What feels more horrifying here is instead of graphic violence, covert lawfare, the unethical twisting of laws, and the maneuvering bureaucracy for their own convenience was used to crush dissent. Pair this along with the fact that the cohorts even celebrated Nat’s death, as if it was her birthday, with a presentation of a newborn baby inside a box — not to mention being creepy enough even if it were not done in real life.
One striking part of the film is that Nat will instead be used to identify the dreams of the workers in an agenda to keep the lower classes in line. A form of dream surveillance was conducted to the factory workers to prevent their souls from coming back, like in the case of Tok — whose spirit had returned to the living to avenge his own death due to the factory’s working conditions, costing him his heart and livelihood followed by politically incompatible ghosts. One of them was Krong, who has a daughter who continues to remember him.
Dust represents the unquiet souls who continue to haunt the living beings. In the first parts of the film — it revolves around the city’s development plans as part of their modernization plans, at the cost of past memories. During construction, dust continues to linger around the city. It creepingly arrives at the conclusion of continued oppression while keeping it squeaky clean for the next generation and that even in death, ghosts do not have power to change things.
Authoritarian repression had shaped the lives of most Southeast Asians as it served as a painful act of building a ‘perfect’ society while giving in to the pressures of the world’s powerful countries at the time, the United States and the Soviet Union. In the context of Thailand during the military rule, the same authoritarian scars linger through the Thammasat Massacre in October 1976 and the Red Shirts protests in May 2010.
Humor is portrayed very well even at the subtlest moments of the vacuum cleaner having sex with a human being. Boonbunchachoke’s idea of using appliances acting as vessels for the returning souls with unfinished businesses is a clever way of incorporating mundane, everyday things into a visual tapestry intertwined with folklore.
Wisarut Homhuan as the “academic ladyboy” meets the repairman, Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) in A Useful Ghost | Courtesy of Best Friend Forever, 185 Films, Haut Les Mains, Momo Film Co., Mayana Films, Kliff Studios, N8 and Cinema22
Part environmentalist, part dystopian political thriller and also partly slapstick, A Useful Ghost is not just about a possession film, it’s a form of memory keeper. A theatrically playful one. To return to the living world is an act of protest. The moral lesson here is one cannot just clean the past like in a way of housekeeping.
This is a film about remembrance and resistance.
And one thing is for sure that the dead will never be forgotten just like Krong, Tok and the rest of the unquiet souls who seek justice.
‘A Useful Ghost’ is part of QCinema 2025 line-up as part of the Asian Next Wave category. The film won the Best Film award under the Asian Next Wave category last November 19, 2025.
