Any horror film that digs into the folklore of the country they’re made in is always incredibly interesting, so rather than just dropping a generic ghost into a house and calling it a day, Neang Phuong: The 1990s builds the story around Khmer folklore, a mysterious female spirit and a rural community living with something from the past that refuses to disappear.
Something From the Past Has Come Back
The story takes us into a rural Cambodian community during the 1990s, where strange events begin surrounding a mysterious female spirit connected to Neang Phuong, and at first, the characters are faced with unexplained incidents that are difficult to make sense of, but the further they investigate, the more they uncover about the history behind the haunting – there are old memories, there are forgotten tragedies, and there are secrets that apparently haven’t stayed buried as well as everyone hoped.
The more the characters try to understand what is happening, the clearer it becomes that this isn’t simply a case of a ghost turning up to scare people, as there’s a history behind the spirit, and the community has to deal with whatever happened before they can understand why it’s happening again.
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A Ghost Story With Khmer Roots
The folklore is probably the thing I’m most interested in here, as always, as Neang Phuong is connected to Khmer folklore, and the film uses the idea of a female spirit and stories passed down through generations as the basis for its supernatural mystery, which gives the movie something specific to draw from.
I’ve seen enough horror films where the supposedly ancient legend could have come from literally anywhere. Somebody discovers an old spirit, somebody says don’t go there, everyone ignores them, and off we go.
Here, the connection to Cambodian mythology and traditional ghost stories gives the film an opportunity to show a different side of Asian supernatural horror.
The 1990s Setting Is a Nice Touch
Setting the film during the 1990s could have been purely cosmetic, but I think it potentially adds quite a bit to the story, as this is a world where rumours and stories are travelling through a community rather than social media – if something strange happens, people aren’t going to immediately look it up online, they’re going to ask somebody who knows the old stories.
And that person will probably know somebody else who remembers something similar happening twenty years earlier, and I think that’s exactly the sort of environment where folklore thrives.
It also means the film can place its supernatural story against a particular period of Cambodian life rather than making the setting feel completely interchangeable.
But one thing I hope the film doesn’t lose sight of is the mystery underneath the supernatural stuff – the female spirit is obviously the visual hook, but the more interesting question for me is what happened in the first place, and why does this particular story continue to haunt the community?
That’s what I’m hoping this one delivers.
A More Traditional Kind of Horror
There is something quite refreshing about the basic idea here, because a lot of modern horror is obsessed with explaining itself – everything needs rules, mythology, timelines and somebody standing around explaining exactly what the monster can and can’t do.
Neang Phuong: The 1990s sounds much more interested in the old-fashioned idea of a story being passed down because people are afraid of what happened, which is a much more interesting starting point for folklore horror.
And the rural setting helps, too – you can imagine how something like this could become part of the identity of a community – something people whisper about, something older generations remember, something younger people might dismiss until they experience it themselves.
Then suddenly the old story isn’t quite so silly anymore.
The main appeal for me with this one though is 100% the Cambodian setting and Khmer folklore, because I always want to see more horror films using their own cultural stories instead of trying to make something that could just as easily have been filmed in America, Japan or anywhere else – the female spirit at the centre of this also gives it a connection to the long tradition of Asian ghost stories involving women who die tragically and return with unfinished business.
But the Cambodian folklore angle is what makes me want to see what the filmmakers actually do with it.
I’m also curious about the 1990s setting, as it could give the movie a really nice sense of time and place, especially if it properly captures rural Cambodia rather than using the decade as nothing more than a few costumes and old cars.
And at around 90 minutes, I’m quite happy with the idea of a relatively lean ghost story.
If Neang Phuong: The 1990s can build a genuinely creepy atmosphere around its Khmer folklore and make the history behind the spirit worth uncovering, this could be exactly the sort of Cambodian horror film I enjoy finding – a straightforward ghost story with enough local mythology underneath it to make it feel like it belongs somewhere.
Check out some more Cambodian horror movies.
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