Strange Frequencies: Taiwan Killer Hospital

♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

A Caucasian couple explores the abandoned Xinglin General Hospital in Tainan which is considered to be the most haunted place in Taiwan. The joking around suddenly takes a turn for the worse when the guy disappears and his partner is later found dead after jumping off an upper floor window. The story goes viral and becomes a marketing idea for a group of Filipino celebrities looking for a new gig. Actors Enrique Gil (Enrique Gil) and Jane de Leon (Jane de Leon) form their own crew which includes fellow actors Rob Gomez (Rob Gomez) and Alexa Miro (Alexa Miro), online content creators Raf Pineda (Raf Pineda) and Zarckaroo (Ryan Azurin), as well as beauty queen MJ Lastimosa (MJ Lastimosa). The job is simple. All seven of them will fly to Taiwan where a local guide will sneak them into the building without a permit, live stream the whole thing, and hit 3,000,000 concurrent live views for a hefty payout. Unbeknownst to them, something supernatural and sinister is awaiting their arrival.

This is the local adaptation of the 2018 Korean horror flick Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, which I haven’t watched meaning I don’t have a point of comparison and, thus, am reviewing this as a standalone film independent of expectations from the original. The movie that immediately comes to mind when I think of something similar in terms of style and tone is that 2007 Spanish found footage horror film called Rec. Some people are hailing this movie as the Philippines’s first “meta found footage horror film,” whatever that means. As much as I’d like to label it as such, the entirety of the movie is not really of that filming style alone.

The “meta” tag, I can understand, though. The actors are all playing a fictional version of themselves, which peels off one layer of the fourth wall, making it seem as though you were watching real events that happened to these actors instead of their characters. The shots are a mix of found footage and third person while the screen zooms out from time to time revealing that what you are watching is actually an online website streaming live, showing a counter of quickly ascending views getting closer and closer to the 3 million target. On the right side, a la YouTube, is a live comments section praising the cast for their “acting”.

Sometimes you watch a horror film for the lore because you want to use your brain to connect the dots. This movie has all of those sprinkled all throughout its 90 minute run, mostly alluding to a killer nurse as well as multiple graffiti and sculptures of what looks like a demon with many arms. These subplots are not fully explored, though, because this movie really just falls under the other category where you watch a horror flick to exercise your now long-dormant fight-or-flight response, meaning you just need the jumpscares for fun. In this regard, this movie accomplishes its task because the director utilizes sound effects and CGI quite well.

Focusing on the lore would’ve just turned this into any other horror film out there, on second thought. After all, you quickly realize that while the premise is that of a haunted hospital, the storyline is really about that group of unlucky souls who got supernaturally unalived because of clout chasing. Maybe even ghosts nowadays are tired of these influencers’ self-absorbed shticks? To know whether you are satisfied with this film or not, feel your heartbeat as the credits roll. Since mine obviously benefited from an adrenaline rush, I can safely say that I liked this movie, and I even agree with some that this is this year’s MMFF dark horse.

As for acting, I am loving Enrique Gil in his post-love team exploration era. While his choices seem to be a bit niche lately, they prove to be honing his repertoire as an actor. Unfortunately, his limited part in all the action due to the character being the group’s director robbed him of opportunities to shine. Instead, the spotlight is redirected toward Jane de Leon and Alexa Miro who do most of the heavy lifting, while Raf Pineda the TikTok tarot reader provides most of the comedy even though we’ve already seen this stereotypically loud gay character with snappy retorts cast in film over and over again for laughs.