Rating: 4/5
In the afterlife, if people forget you, you disappear. So, ghosts haunt the living to stay on people’s minds. The dark humor is reminiscent of the original Beetlejuice (without the rape jokes), complete with arbitrary afterlife bureaucracy.
The film has plenty of references for horror and reality TV fans, including a particular red dress and hairstyle from Perfect Blue that one ghostress utilizes. In that way, the film cleverly compares the desire of reality TV contestants to be seen to a ghost that haunts a space. Their existence builds on the external validation of others — to disappear is to lose meaning. So, like the contemporary influencer, these ghosts must consistently make the news with their scares, and so put on outrageous personas to stand out from the others.
— As long as you are seen, they think you are talented. — What does it mean to be seen? — That's any ghost's guess.
The film is charming, with a fun cast and some solid jokes throughout. Through its unnamed lead, played by Gingle Wang, it struck an emotional place for me. Our lead doesn’t have much talent, at least in the ways required for external validation. Her journey in the film is discovering where her value lies and what makes her afterlife worth not disappearing for.
Overall, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this as much as I did, but this could easily be a comfort movie I return to in the future.