20131025: Horror Review--Sick Nurses

Sick Nurses (Suay Laak Sai)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Thai live action feature length film, 2007, NR, 82 minutes.  Aspect 1.78 as listed by IMDB, but it looks more like 1.33.
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 1,297 user ratings.  Spoken word is in Thai, subtitles in English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 31% liked it from 160 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 44,748 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Piraphan Laoyont, Thodsapol Siriwiwat; screenplay by Chon Wachananon.
6. Starring: Chon Wachananon as Tawan, Wichan Jarujinda as Dr. Taa, Chidjan Rujiphun as Nook, Kanja Rattapetch as Aeh, Dollaros Dachapratumwan as Jo.


2. Setup and Plot
1. At Apai Dharma Hospital, Nurse Tawan thinks Dr Taa might marry her, but he proves to be interested in her sister, Nurse Nook.  The jealously arising plus other irritations causes Tawan to threaten the other nurses and Dr Taa with exposure of their lucrative body selling.  Criminals seldom have much sense of humour; the others kill Tawan.  The prepare Tawan's body for delivery to the usual body seller, but no one comes to collect.  Odd.


2. So, how did we get there, and what were the consequences of one more murder?


3. Nurse Aeh asks how long has it been since they killed Tawan?  This was the seventh day.  Aeh adds that the acts from the dead spirits happen on the seventh day.  She countdown to midnight ensues.  Aeh thinks Nook is the target, since she took Taa away from Tawan.  Another nurse thinks it's Aeh, since Aeh had her own baggage.


4. The nurses have a lot of free time, money, cosmetics, and high calorie junk food on their hands.  As the clock ticks down to midnight, the various nurses encounter the ghost.


5. Nook gets a positive on her pregnancy test.  She emerges from the toilet to see the lesbian twins (Orn and Am) with their forearms somehow stuck to a low table.  Nook edges past to get away from this scene.  Aeh runs past her; Nook tries to follow.


6. The ghost pursues the nurses relentlessly, and seems always to have the upper hand.


7. Does anyone come out of this OK?  Do we care?


3. Conclusions
1. Cheesiness factors: Nudity, slim to none.  There was quite a bit of gore for a low budget effort like this. Inventiveness was shown in this area.  On the other hand, the long-haired ghost looks and moves like Sadako at times (or the hair demons in Inuyasha), so there's a derivative layer that I could have done without.


2. At Apai Dharma Hospital there are no recovering patients, no emergency patients, no lab tests, no admissions personnel, no custodians.  Just the protagonists and the walls.  Seems to be more of a context-free play filmed as a movie in an abandoned hospital.


3. Flashbacks are endless, and not always helpful.


4. One line summary: Poor story and non-engaging characters, but plenty of gore.


5. Two stars of five.  The two stars are for the last three minutes before the credits, where the doctor's role in all this foulness is revealed, and for the wonderful score during the credits.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Yikes, saw it on Netflix, streamed in standard, and looks more like VHS.  The aspect ratio I observed was 1.33 which looks bad to start with.


2. Sound: 10/10 A bit florid at times, but much more effective than the visuals, the acting, or the screenplay.


3. Acting: 5/10 Varies, but most of it is mediocre, some of it downright wooden.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The fracturing of the timelines of the nurses is rather severe, and none of the timelines is all that interesting.  Why not?  This is because I never saw any reason to care about any of the characters to begin with.  They are all black market organ thieves, after all.  Following each one to their own particular grisly death was more ho-hum than anything else.