The Housemaid (Cô Hầu Gái )
Derek Nguyen / Vietnam / 2016 / 106 min
Derek Nguyen’s intriguing horror film takes place during the French colonial era in what can best be described as a southern Vietnamese Gothic work. The Housemaid laces together Gothic themes of love, betrayal, revenge, and spirits into once place, that is, the haunted colonial rubber plantation that is at the center of the film. It is 1953, and Linh (Kate Nhung) is an orphan seeking a place to work and live after the death of both her parents. She finds both – and then some – at the mansion that Captain Sebastien Laurent (Jean-Michel Richaud) presides over. While working to defeat the anticolonialists of the era, Captain Laurent also mourns the death of his beloved Camille, a female ghost who seeks revenge after the death of their premature son. Such elements of love and sex set the stage for a horror film that has a number of good scares for the amateur and experienced horror spectator. What is especially noteworthy, though, is the story that unfolds about colonialism and the kinds of questions the history of French domination provokes about traitors and collaborators. The film asks: Who should be punished and die for the evils of colonialism? The movie provides not only an answer to this question but also a lot of creepy moments along the way.