Thee (Saharath Sangkapreecha) is a father who’s quite excited that he can finally prove to his mother-in-law that he can take care of his family. He has a new job and has just bought them a new house in a gated subdivision that, to me, looks quite nice. He gets everything moved in and then his wife, Parn (Piyathida Woramusik), teenage daughter Nan (Suthatta Udomsilp), and young son Nat (Apipich Chutiwatkajornchai) can finally join him. As a typical teenager, Nan is upset with the new place. She says that it is old and run down. She’s naturally upset at being forced to move out of the city and away from her friends. Nat is happy in the new place, but he’s a young child. The neighbors have a son named Golf that is just a few years over than Nat, so Nat has someone to play with. Parn is hesitant, but she wants to support her husband and help him feel confident. Her mother has never felt that he was good enough for her and has always berated him, leaving Parn stuck between the two. This move will get them away from that situation.
Things seem to go great at first, but to those of us watching, we know that Thee’s job isn’t a good one. It’s obviously a pyramid scheme that he has unwittingly joined, but he sticks it out because he is determined to make a good life for his family. At home, little things are already going wrong. Immediately after moving, there is a small fire in a bedroom. It is handled quickly, but still scary. Then it is the neighbor’s black cat that comes into the house, disrupting things. Not long after, the woman that Thee hired to be a maid for them was found dead in her house. The next day, a neighbor is taken out of her house at night by the paramedics, because she is screaming in hysterics. She said the dead woman was walking around her house. Apparently, the woman used to be a maid there and was just coming back to where she had always been. The real problem is that when people die in the neighborhood, their spirits never leave. Of course, Thee doesn’t believe in ghosts, even when he sees one for himself. He really doesn’t believe his daughter when she says the place is haunted, but Thee really should learn to listen to his family.
Family really is the theme of the movie. The real problem I have with Laddaland is that it felt like a good, creepy horror movie, until the end. However, the end made me think of an after-school special and really left us sad. You just shouldn’t feel sad at the end of a horror movie. Scared, yes, but not sad. Personally, I would just have preferred a different ending, but I guess since it is based on a true story, you can’t really change the ending that much. There are a few special features, and they’re not particularly long. Both the Interviews and the Behind the Scenes are about 6 minutes long, but there is some good information in there. I do wish they had provided an alternate ending, though. I like the fact that the movie provides both the original Thai and the English dub in 5.1 Surround. It does take some work to get used to watching it in the English, but you don’t notice the difference before long. Having the original as well is quite nice because sometimes you just don’t want to see the dubs and sometimes you don’t want to read the subtitles.
Overall, I enjoyed Laddaland, but I just did not like the ending. Otherwise, there were some really creepy moments and real attention to detail with the upkeep and appearance of the neighborhood. If you’re looking for a solid horror, you might want to check out Laddaland.
