Ta Khon: The Cursed Mask Makes Its Latin American Premiere in São Paulo

Thai horror has continued its trend to find new audiences outside its home country, with Ta Khon: The Cursed Mask making its Latin American premiere at the Thai Film Festival in São Paulo, Brazil, which took place from 14–16 August.

The screening gives the supernatural horror film its first outing in Latin America, bringing another Thai genre title to an international audience as the country’s horror cinema continues to travel well beyond Thailand.

Ta Khon: The Cursed Mask is built around one of those wonderfully creepy pieces of Thai folklore that feels like it was practically designed to end up in a horror movie – the Ta Khon mask, a traditional masked figure associated with the Phi Ta Khon festival in Thailand.

The festival itself also featured the participants wearing brightly coloured, often deliberately grotesque masks and costumes as part of celebrations traditionally held in Dan Sai district in Loei province.

The Thai Film Festival in São Paulo

The film was screened as part of the Thai Film Festival in São Paulo, held from 14 to 16 August, giving Brazilian audiences and the wider Latin American film community the opportunity to see the movie on the big screen, and while a Latin American premiere might sound like a small piece of release news, but these festival screenings are important for Asian horror films that might otherwise have very little theatrical exposure outside their home markets.

Thailand has of course produced a ridiculous amount of horror over the years, from ghosts and possession stories to folk horror and supernatural thrillers, but plenty of those films never get anything approaching a proper international theatrical run, so festival appearances like this can therefore be a very positive step, and is worth noting.

Ta Khon is also not some invented monster name created for a horror franchise – it refers to the masked tradition associated with the Phi Ta Khon festival, meaning the film has a very recognisable piece of Thai cultural imagery sitting right at the centre of its horror premise.

The masks also give the film an obvious visual advantage because, let’s be honest, creepy traditional masks are basically horror cheat codes.

Trailer

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About The Author

I am a fan of movies in general and watch quite a few every week, but my love for Asian horror started in the 90’s during the J-horror boom – you know the ones – and ever since then I’ve been hooked on discovering horror from across Asia, from the classics everyone knows to the hidden gems that deserve a much bigger audience.

On this site I explore Asian horror movies from across Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia, Malaysia, and beyond, since the big entertainment sites tend to focus only on the biggest releases.