There are certain aspects of streaming culture that disturb me. “Content” is a word that properly describes what is created from this activity; a word that implies a soulless, artless product made to be consumed. In the process, many have created their content in ways that are unethical and disrespectful, and there’s even a collective term for it: nuisance streaming. And even with the biggest creators of content, there’s a soullessness to the whole thing (ever watched a MrBeast video?) so it’s weirdly appropriate that the pushback to that soullessness in this next film is done by actual souls. Souls of the damned, yes, but souls nonetheless.
Strange Frequencies: Taiwan Killer Hospital (that title is a mouthful, but let’s ride along) is a faithful adaptation of Jung Bum-shik’s 2018 film Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. Not faithful in the sense that it’s a shot for shot remake (it’s definitely not), but it mostly keeps the same story beats with new scares and setups. That has its advantages and disadvantages, as we will see.
First off, the film takes place in Taiwan, and not in the Philippines, even though we have no shortage of haunted locales in our country and the ghost hunter genre of TV media isn’t uncommon. On the other hand, that lends an extra dimension to the whole thing: in the course of creating content (because that’s what this is) people go to foreign places and confer no respect to whatever is going on. Many of the characters touch things and openly mock the spirits there, despite being told by a local that that would be a very bad idea. Additionally, the fact that the nature supernatural entities or weirdo cults that have inhabited the hospital isn’t explained makes the whole thing a bit scarier (the scariest, and also the silliest, parts of the film for me are a sequence of old black and white pictures.)
At the center of Strange Frequencies is Enrique Gil, who embarks on this supernatural expedition as a career boost. The film does have a throwaway line at the end (which if I recall was not in the original) that comments on the lengths people will go for fame, and how the existence of the film is driven by metrics, as Gil won’t abandon the production until he gets 3 million views, even when people are dying left and right around him. As with the other actors involved in the production, I wish the film leaned in even more on creating a sense of verisimilitude – commenting on Enrique Gil’s current post-loveteam status, or expanding on the comments on the stream when Jane de Leon asked for help. Granted, yes, audiences probably already know that this is fake, but putting some more doubt into that would be, I think, a good idea. As an aside, Jane de Leon’s performance is my favorite among all the cast, if only for the fact that she had a lot of great terrified expressions in this film.
Is it scarier than the original? Maybe not. But I think it’s a fun time at the cinema, especially with friends.
This review first appeared on John Tawasil’s blog, Present Confusion, Strange Frequencies review.
