Review: ‘The Ghost Snatchers’ is a mid 80’s comedy ghost story that recalls events from so many similar films (‘Haunted Cop Shop’, ‘Beauty of the Haunted House’) that throw slapstick scares into the most ordinary of situations. Televisions come to life to ensnare couch potatoes, pot noodles turn into worms, and those with certain gifts can see the sinister demons lurking amongst the living. Without giving too much away, the devices used to frighten us have been seen before, especially for those of us who have seen more than a couple of HK horrors. It’s a mixed blessing. There’s little new here, but that depends on how much you love HK horror (or not).

It’s a real shame, because director Nam Nai Choi was responsible for the insane pleasures of ‘The Seventh Curse’, but ‘Ghost Snatchers’ is more akin to ‘The Cat’, in that the whole never manages to be the sum of its many crazy parts.

It’s not all that bad, though. Wong Jing is unusually likeable in the lead role, and his self-penned script provides plenty of laughs for those who appreciate his off-kilter schoolboy humour. Jing, who usually casts women in passive, eye-candy roles, really surprises us by portraying the men as damsels in distress, while it’s the women who are in control through most of the film.

Of special note is the Mah Jong scene (it’s a game vaguely similar to dominoes). According to ‘The Ghost Snatchers’, a mischievous ghost turns up to Mah Jong games to unfairly sway the odds in favour of a player. So, a really shoddy puppet shows up to the game. He’s furry, he has a nose like a trumpet, and a pair of shades on. The local textiles college must have spent a whole hour stitching it together. Our heroes use magic to reveal its presence, and proceed to win the game by kicking the fur out of the gambling gremlin. It’s weird. Very weird.

Check out ‘The Ghost Snatchers’ if you can, but everyone involved in the production has produced better work. The pacing is initially slow, characters are never fully developed, and instead of being loveably cheesy, the special effects are just crap. This reviewer is starting to give more and more HK horror films bad reviews, and what’s really disheartening is the thought that I may have already seen all the good ones. Go see ‘The Seventh Curse’ instead. It’s fantastic, and has a much cooler fight with a skeleton.