Every once in a blue moon, I like to revisit Letterboxd’s Top 250 Horror Movies, meaning the highest-rated horror films on the site. I consider myself a horror aficionado, but even I currently sit at a paltry 67%, that’s 168 out of 250 watched thus far.
What are these elusive horror classics? Mostly foreign films. I thought I was well-versed in J-horror and the French Extremity, but apparently I’ve barely rubbed up against the tip of the icepick (that’s enough of a horror pun, right?).
There are recent movies I need to catch up with, The Long Walk or The Ugly Stepsister (from Norway), but it’s mostly foreign, artsy stuff with titles like A Page of Madness, Mother Joan of the Angels, and The Hourglass Sanatorium. Heady-sounding films I fear will be boring, or long, or both.
Watching Dead Talents Society has made me reevaluate everything.
The 2024 Taiwanese horror-comedy Dead Talents Society is a banger. It’s funny, heartfelt, and packed with lore, it’s the perfect ghost movie. This film is so loaded with ideas I felt like I’d watched an entire anime series in one sitting. I loved the look, the style, and the characters. I’m not familiar with relative newcomer writer-director John Hsu, but he’s sure as shit on my radar now. My ghost radar!
In Dead Talents Society, ghosts don’t aimlessly float around and call out “Boo!” they have to earn their place in the afterlife by scaring the living. Kind of like Monster’s Inc. Every haunting is evaluated by viewers in the ghost world, and failure means fading into nothingness.
Hsiao-Lei (Gingle Wang), is a meek young woman who dies with no legacy and after her living parents lose her only ever trophy (a “Hardwork Award” her dad made for her) she glitches out and begins to fade away. Much like Coco, if you are forgotten you vanish. A lot of Pixar energy in this plot.
To stop from fading away, Hsiao-Lei discovers she can earn a “Haunting License”, gain notoriety, and continue to exist. She’s taken under the wing of Makoto (Chen Bolin), a down-on-his-luck ghost agent, and Catherine (Sandrinne Pinna), a washed-up diva terrified of becoming a ghostly hasbeen. Together they navigate a bureaucratic afterlife (like Beetlejuice) filled with ghost auditions, PR managers, and viral scares. Director John Hsu satirizes our obsession with celebrity culture with punchy pacing and likable characters.
But for all the fun and games, the film has heart. Beneath the gags and ghouls, it’s about memory, legacy, and what it means to be seen. Hsiao-Lei felt like a ghost when she was alive but as an actual ghosts finds people who get her and relate to her. Dead Talents Society is just as strong a coming-of-age film as it is a horror film.
I’m surprised I haven’t heard whispers of an American remake for this one. There could be a lot to expand on here with America’s history and perception of ghosts and obsession with celeb pop culture. Also, I watched this on Netflix so it must get decent exposure. Regardless, it has me excited for John Hsu as a filmmaker on the rise and it was a BOO-tiful way to end my Shocktober… Boo-tiful means beautiful if you didn’t get that.