404 RUN RUN (404 สุขีนิรันดร์..RUN RUN) (NETFLIX) (2024)

SYNOPSIS: A comedic ghost story unfolds as ‘Nakrob’, a young real estate swindler, discovers an abandoned hillside hotel by the beach. Seeing an opportunity, he decides to turn it into a luxury hotel scam. However, Nakrob soon realizes that the hotel is still occupied by the ghost of its original owner, ‘Lalita’, who continues to haunt every inch of the property. Lalita’s ghost inflicts inexplicable horrors on anyone attempting to claim ownership after hers. Thus, a battle ensues between the living and the dead. Nakrob, gathering shamans from various faith communities, attempts to expel Lalita, while she uses all her spectral power to haunt the intruders until their demise.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Even though 404 Run Run is a Thai horror comedy, it reminds one of those HK horror comedies directed by Jeff Lau back in the 80’s. Remember The Haunted Cop Shop, Operation Pink Squad 2 and Mortuary Blues? Never that scary, inconsequential and utterly funny.

Chantavit Dhanasevi known for headlining comedies such as One day, ATM and Hello Stranger plays a small-time property developer and agent, Nakrop who specialised in renovating rundown houses and selling them at a higher price to unsuspecting clients. But his business is in a fix and his girlfriend, Jie-Pen (Natty Nantanat Thakadkul) has to bail him out using their wedding fund.

Instead of go small, Nakrop decides to go big by purchasing a dilapidated hotel, The Sukhee Nirun located in a rural small town. It turns out that the hotel is haunted by the presence of a lady ghost, Lalita (Kanyawee Songmuang), the very first owner of the hotel. In order to take back his hotel, Nakrop has to engage numerous exorcists to deal with Lalita or face the wrath of her curse.

At least for the first half, 404 Run Run is filled with the absurdities and humour from the antics of the various exorcists that ranged from a novice monk to a white television evangelist of sort, Dr John to a blind bomoh to tackle the powerful Lalita. The result is a combination of nonsensical humour and atrocious violence that help keeps the energy going particularly the unexpected violent death of John.

Yet for all the silliness, 404 Run Run does offers to a certain degree a touching love story behind the death of Lalita and her partner. Even the romance between Nakrop and Jie-Pan has a bittersweet ending than what you would have expected from a comedy.

The supporting cast members Daou Pittaya Saechua, Arethai Supathat Opas and Nui Chernyim did an excellent wacky job without stealing the attention from Dhanasevi. Despite being an easily understood comedy fest, there are moments that feel lost in translation probably as a result of this reviewer being a non-native speaker. Still, 404 Run Run is a decent comedy from first time feature length director Pichaya Jarusboonpracha, it has a few jump scares, a life lesson about redemption and lots of laughs.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee