Deadly Moves: Folk Games and Presentations of Violence in Contemporary Thai Ghost Cinema

Abstract

In contemporary Thai ghost cinema, folklore is often employed as a cinematic device to portray haunting effects and visualize issues related to various forms of violence in Thai society. This article examines how four Thai ghost films—The Letters of Death (2006), The Unseeable (2006), Ladda Land (2011), and Ghost Ship (2015)—incorporate folk games such as Hangman, Hide and Seek, and Mon Son Pha into their plots. By integrating folkloristic methodologies and cultural studies, particularly the concept of play-elements, this study finds that these games are depicted in an intensified manner, diverging from the conventional traits of gaming. The notions of fun and freedom typically associated with games are distorted into mechanisms of control and severity. Game rules, traditionally shared among players, are manipulated to benefit specific individuals, granting them power over others. While the inherent limitations of games are subverted, the blurring of game boundaries ultimately results in the real-life deaths of players. These haunting games serve as a medium through which film characters react to, resist, and reinterpret the injustices they face, including bullying, pressures from a capitalist-patriarchal society, an imbalanced hierarchical system, and racial bias. Consequently, folk games play a crucial role as tools for oppressed and marginalized characters, enabling them to reclaim agency, escape injustice, and express forms of violence that would otherwise remain silenced in real life.