The Ancestral – Review

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There are some nice set pieces in this film, and some where you are left wondering just how many sheets one household needs.

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Streaming now on Screambox THE ANCESTRAL (BÓNG DÈ) is the latest from Vietnamese writer/director Le-Van Kiet, who recently made his English-language debut with THE REQUIN.

THE ANCESTRAL follows widower Thành (Quang Tuan) and his young daughters Linh (Lâm Thanh My) and Yen (Mai Cát Vi) as they move into their ancestral home (now it makes sense) after the death of their mother/wife.

It’s made clear that Thành and the girls have a close relationship which makes what is to come a little clearer that it’s “out of the ordinary” behaviour.

The film focuses on sleep paralysis, and little Yen is haunted by nightmarish visions and sleepwalking with her sister and father trying to help.

Linh begins to see and hear things in the house, moving shadows, creaking floors, whispers, strange guttural croaking sounds, you know the usual haunted house shenanigans.

Dad, who appears mostly oblivious to all of this hires a tutor, Mrs. Hanh (Dieu Nhi), to look after the girls while he’s not there. She seems a little overly familiar and slightly useless from the get go to be honest.

As we hit the final third, the film changes tack and has a Resident Evil style makeover as we find out what’s really going on at the house. For me, this is where the film really picked up while simultaneously completely falling apart.

The scares ramp up, as does the volume of the music as it almost drowns out the dialogue, which includes the complete “listen audience, we know this is all a bit weird and you probably haven’t got a clue how this can possibly work, so we’re just going to spell everything out for you now” section.

There are some nice set pieces in this film, and some where you are left wondering just how many sheets one household needs.

A sequence where Linh is relaxing in a hammock is particularly well done, then marred by some poorly done cgi something that a few of the set pieces suffer from.

Jump scares, eerie surroundings and a huge old house to explore hint at some great horror to be had, but the film doesn’t live up to those possibilities.

The two young leads give great performances throughout, I found some of the dad’s to be a bit lacking in the “my daughters are screaming for their lives” scenarios.

So as it’s on streaming, an important thing to consider is will people watch to completion? I feel if this was an English language film, you’d probably turn it off within the first hour, never reaching the slight madness of the final third. Which is a shame as there’s some nice moments to be had.

Overall a nicely shot haunted house horror, which had a feeling that it would have suited being shot on black and white film. Nothing that warrants a rewatch, but maybe just enough jump scare to keep a modern horror fan happy… maybe.

THE ANCESTRAL is streaming now on SCREAMBOX. You can view the trailer below.

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