Bloody Krasue (1994)

In Thai the title reads กระสือ กระหายเลือด which literary means “Bloody Filth-Eating Spirit”, but a Thai friend suggested that Bloody Krause would be a more fitting title so I’ll trust him and hereby baptizes this movie to it’s first (?) English title ever. The Krause has been the subject of many many many movies from Thailand and Indonesia, and it’s a female ghost, consisting of a flying head with the guts hanging underneath it. Cool, eh? First time I heard of this movie was when I saw the original poster on eBay and bought it (it’s the poster used in this review) and finally I also found it on VCD and it just took me a year or so to finally watch it. And you know, this was actually not bad at all!

Thida Teerarat plays a woman being chased by a gang of bandits. What they want with her I have no idea, but she escapes them and finds shelter at an old woman, a good-hearted witch! In the night the old woman, who is a Krasue, flies away in the night scaring away the bandits. Next morning Thida finds the old woman dead in her bed. Thida decide to stay in the house, because no one else claims it, but what she don’t know is that she’s possessed by the Krasue now and every night she have to fly out and eat the animals belonging to the neighbours! They are aware that she’s a Krasue but she causes no danger for them and protects them. But soon the bandits is getting closer and Thida starts to get a thirst for human blood instead of chicken!

Not that Bloody Krause is any original, but it’s a surprisingly well-made little horror movie. Thida Teerarat was hot at this time, and both in 1992 and 1993 she won the best actress award at the “Thai Oscars”, the Tuk-ka-Ta Thong award. She’s also a very good actress and gives us a sensitive performance in-between the horror scenes, were she looks completely out of her mind as the flying head! Overall the acting is very good, and Ekapan Banleurit playing her love-interest especially. The style of the movie is classy and looks extremely good even on the cheap VCD I have. The direction by Sang-Tawan is intelligent and so is the script, with really no boring parts, by Wasuthep O-Siri.

Compared to the last Krasue film I saw, Ghost of Guts Eaters, the effects works better here, mostly because of the lack of primitive video effects. This is mostly a fake head flying with the help of wires and cool close-ups of the actresses faces drenched in massive green light. It’s not overly gory, except a few shots of the ghost eating meat and drooling blood, but it has enough attacks on humans the last half hour to make up for that.

As a bonus there’s one very nice and violent fight scene, similar of what Panna Rittikrai and friends did in their movies in the eighties. The fun thing with that scene is that it was obviously shot in chronological order and probably quite late in the day, so it gets darker in every shot and in the end its night! Sure, it could have been on purpose, but as an ex-filmmaker I know the problem and have experienced it myself several times!

Bloody Krause is a very good movie in the Krause genre. Not original, but never boring and filled with nice shots and some excellent use of stolen music!

Here’s the other actors names, to make it easier for others who’s researching this movie:

ศิโรจน์ โอศิริ (Sirojn O-Siri)
กุสุมา หทัยทิพย์ (Kusuma Hataitip)
นันทิดา ระหงษ์ (Nanthida Rahong)
ชุมพร อุดมศักดิ์ (Chumporn Udomsak)
เป้า ปรปักษ์ (Pao Porapak)
เผ่าไท พรพิสิจ (Paothai Pornpisit)
สุชาดา อีเอม (Suchada E-aim)

It’s produced by Pakinee Sunthornchart.