Coming Soon (2008 film)

Coming Soon (โปรแกรมหน้า วิญญาณอาฆาต) is a 2008 Thai horror film starring Worrakarn Rotjanawatchra, Oraphan Arjsamat, Sakulrath Thomas, and Chantavit Dhanasevi. The film is the directorial debut for Sophon Sakdapisit, who was the co-writer of the films Shutter (2004) and Alone (2007).

Plot
The movie starts with a scene of a movie where a woman named Chaba murders two of her three kidnapped children, only to be arrested by local villagers and hanged.

Shane and Som, in the movie audience, got traumatized by Shomba and start researching, finding out that this movie was based on a true event that happened 30 years ago.

Curious, they decide to check the house where this event occurred. While in the house, Shane falls off the stairs and gets heavily injured. At the hospital, they are questioned by the doctor on why they went to the house, to which they replied it was to investigate the report of Chaba's death. The doctor later tells them that Chaba hasn't died and is currently in a mental facility.

Shane and Som decide to find out for themselves what had gone wrong with the film. Watching one of its behind-the-scenes clip, Shane witnesses the actress, Ingchan, having difficulty portraying the hanging scene despite the noose around her neck being attached with a safety sling. During one more take, it looked like Ingchan had portrayed the scene right. However, one of the staff filming via a different camera zoomed in on the safety sling and it showed that it had snapped. As a result, Ingchan literally dies from hanging before the entire staff could immediately rescue her.

Having safely found their way out, Shane reveals to Som the whole truth and warns her not to watch the movie at all costs. He leaves to her his watch before rushing back to the movie theater.

Once there, Shane is relentlessly chased by the vengeful ghost of Ingchan. All of the former's attempt to escape proved entirely futile as at one point he is supernaturally transported inside the place where the hanging scene took place. There Shane witnesses the corpses of several of his co-employees and friends, including Yod. Som soon catches up to the movie theater and can only watch in horror and in utter defeat as Ingchan gouges Shane's eyes out, killing him and suffering the same fate as Yod and the others.

Soon thereafter, Som's fate is revealed as she was seen her eyes gouged out and placed within the actual movie scene and the film eventually gets distributed as usual, leaving Ingchan's real death to be witnessed repeatedly by moviegoers. The film ends with Ingchan dying by hanging in the movie screen and for one final scare, waking up again suddenly and shouting, "You really want to see me die?!".

Critical reception
Slasherpool felt that the film had some decent scary moments and that the script was sound. They noted that first-time director Sopon Sukdapisit might not have had a lot of experience, with some obvious flaws, and "rookie" mistakes, and nothing very innovative, suggesting that he stick to writing. The opined that it "is a movie destined to be remade"..."worth watching if you're in the mood for a decent ghost story but don't expect to get blown away." When reviewed by Movie Exclusive, they summarized by saying "Coming Soon doesn't have enough to be an instant classic, but it bodes well for the GMM Tai Hub stable that they're still a force to be reckoned with when it comes to raking up the scares". The Fridae Movie Club thought the film had promise when they wrote "Coming Soon has a sharp film-within-a-film concept, further proof of Sophon Sakdapisit’s screenwriting talents", but noted its lacks when writing "But the direction falls way short of the ambitious script." This same opinion was shared by Fangoria, which wrote "Sakdapisit tosses in a few effective setpieces and plenty of gouged-out eyes, but the majority of Coming Soon feels overly familiar and illogical".

Additional sources

 * Review at Dlanz Movies
 * Review at Horror News