I’ve been keeping an eye on Kasidej Sundararjun since his work on Don’t Come Home, so I was curious when Possessed turned up as his first feature film as director, where the main character is a nurse who doesn’t believe in possession.
That is usually when things start going badly.
Possessed (ผีเข้า) was released in Thailand on May 21, 2026, and has now also reached Malaysian cinemas, where it opened on August 6., and runs for around 96 minutes and comes from Thibaan Studio.
Nut Doesn’t Believe Any of This
Eisaya Hosuwan plays Nut, a young nurse who returns from Bangkok to her rural hometown to look after her recovering mother while she waits for a visa to work overseas, and on her first night working at the local hospital, she encounters Mac, a young man who is believed to have been possessed after an attempted exorcism went badly wrong.
Nut isn’t buying it, though.
She’s a nurse, she’s rational, and as far as she’s concerned there has to be a medical explanation for what she’s seeing, so instead of reaching for holy water and calling in an exorcist, she starts looking for evidence that Mac’s condition has a more ordinary explanation.
And, obviously, the fact that this is called Possessed doesn’t exactly suggest she’s going to win that argument.
Trailer
A Very Different Side of Thibaan Studio
Kasidej Sundararjun directs and co-writes Possessed with Khanit Deepuang, and he also serves as producer – the main cast includes Eisaya Hosuwan as Nut, Thanadon Buarabat as Kay, Chayanit Sornkaewthammung as Nuan, Karuna Looktoomthong as Sa, Teerapop Songwaja as Bas and Nattawat Srirakij as Mac.
The film is also something of a departure for Sundararjun, as his previous credits include writing work on Don’t Come Home and After Dark, but Possessed is his feature directorial debut.
The Isan Setting Matters
The film is rooted in Thailand’s Isan region, and that gives it a very different atmosphere from the glossy Bangkok setting you get in plenty of modern Thai horror, as there’s something particularly useful about putting a possession story in a rural community where people have their own beliefs about what is happening – Nut arrives with her medical training and scepticism, while the people around her already have their own explanation.
So there’s an argument going on before the horror has even properly started, and that feels more interesting to me than simply having a character say, “Oh, she’s possessed. Let’s get the priest.”
What I do like about the setup is that Mac’s condition isn’t treated as an instant answer – Nut believes something else is happening, so the early part of the film has her investigating rather than simply trying to survive., which I think gives the movie a slightly different rhythm from possession films where the supernatural threat is established in the opening ten minutes and everyone spends the rest of the running time trying to get rid of it.
Here, the question is whether Nut is wrong.
And then, presumably, how long it takes before she realises she’s very, very wrong.
I’m Slightly Curious About This One
Possessed doesn’t have the biggest cast or some massive high-concept premise, and that’s actually part of its appeal to me – it’s simply a nurse who doesn’t believe in ghosts investigating a boy everyone else thinks is possessed, set against rural Isan life, with the director coming from a very different filmmaking background than the usual Thai horror crowd.
I’m particularly interested in whether Eisaya Hosuwan can carry the film because so much depends on Nut being believable as someone who genuinely refuses to accept the supernatural explanation. If she immediately starts screaming at ghosts, the whole point disappears.
But if the film lets her remain sceptical for long enough while gradually giving her reasons to question everything she believes, that could work really well.
And frankly, whenever a horror character spends the opening act saying “there’s obviously a rational explanation for this”, I’m usually sticking around to find out exactly how badly that theory falls apart.
Check out some more Thai horror movies.
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