Dorm (Dek Hor) Review

While on holiday in Thailand, I was delighted to find that Dorm had just opened, a film I'd been looking forward to (having seen the trailer on Twitch, of course) and better yet, half of the performances had english subtitles. Before the film started, in a large cinema (in Bangkok's MBK Shopping Centre), I was caught out by the whole audience suddenly standing up for the National Anthem accompanied by a photographic montage of their beloved King. We don't even do that in England! But back to Dorm...

The film opens with Chatree (Chalee Trairat), being sent to boarding school in his seventh grade. His father justifies the decision by saying it will enable him to study harder. Chatree is very angry, but we don't know why he's unable to complain. His life is made even more miserable because he's a 'new kid', joining the school halfway through term. The teacher who doubles as the school matron, Ms. Pranee (Chintara Sukapatana), does little to make him feel welcome.

All the boys in the school sleep in one huge dormitory. On the first night, a gang of four misfits decide to pick on the new kid by telling him ghost stories. Lying under the covers, they tell Chatree that the school, the dorm, Ms. Pranee, even the very bed he's sleeping in, all have a dark history. They tell him about the school worker who committed suicide, the deserted swimming pool, and a ghostly caretaker. The stories are shown as a series of 'flashbacks', but just how much of it are they making up? Their ruse works better than expected - Chatree has to get up in the night and visit a deserted toilet. Outside, dozens of dogs are looking up at his window and howling - or have they seen a ghostly figure standing behind him? He's too scared to look and rushes back to the dorm. Next morning, the everyone sees that Chatree has wet himself in the night.

Humiliated, and now on the wrong side of Ms. Pranee, Chatree's not interested in schoolwork, or even talking to his Dad on the phone. But at least he finally makes a friend. Vichien (Sirachat Jiantaworn) shows him the ropes, but also lets him know that some of the ghost stories he heard actually have an element of truth. They poke around Ms Pranee's office, the derelict school buildings and even play truant. But it's during a school night-time screening of Mr Vampire that Chatree finally gets proof...

Dorm is a coming-of-age ghost story, with an atmosphere that changes with the central character's moods. As Chatree discovers more about the history of the school, he becomes less scared of it, and the film's horror tactics relax. The mood remains quite morbid, however, and the carefully coloured cinematography keeps us cautious as to where the story is heading.

As the lead, Chalee (or Charlie) Trairat ably carries the film, but I'd liked to have seen more about who Chatree is and what he's thinking - he's kept too busy with moving the story forward. The gang of boys who scared him have far better, quirkier characters and provide much-needed comedy. It's Chintara Sukapatana who impresses the most as the matron, though I failed to recognise her from her major role in Good Morning Vietnam.

The young director, Songyos Sugmakanan, previously co-directed another Thai hit, My Girl (Fan Chan) which also starred Chalee Trairat, but Dorm is his first solo directorial effort. The story is partly based on his own bittersweet experiences of boarding school, and he's taken great pains to capture the atmosphere of the time (around 1985) and the place. In interviews, Sugmakanan has also voiced his concerns about how the film has been advertised. I think the posters make it look no different from gory offerings such as Hell or Scared.

Though the story may be too much for an audience as young as Chatree, maybe I'm being over-protective. I will warn you that there's a lot of urinating in the film! Close-ups of kids wetting themselves, boys peeing in bushes, lots of scenes in toilets - you don't get this in Harry Potter. (With a Thai audience, all the pee didn't seem to be a problem, but the schoolboys swearing seemed to be unusual.)

Throw in a brief sex scene (not involving the boys) and you've got yourself a censor's headache. There's also a vivid depiction of hanging that would certainly be a problem in the UK (it wouldn't be shown on TV because of a long history of copycat incidents). But incidentally, I swear that the long shot of the hanging (glimpsed in the trailer) wasn't in the print I saw. A clue to this could be in the two different versions of the film on release in Singapore, each with a different rating.

While it's not my problem to sell the film, or decide whether kids should see it, I can recommend it as a beautifully shot film, with finely-judged performances, and an unusual story in an unfamiliar setting. It's scary, but also funny, dramatic, suspenseful, sad... just all-round satisfying.

Dorm opened in Thailand in February and coincidentally had a Special Presentation at the Bangkok International Film Festival the same week. It's been a box office hit domestically and I certainly hope it gets an international audience, depending on some major tweaks in the marketing.

Review by Mark Hodgson