Coming Soon (2008 film)

Plot

Shane (Chantavit Dhanasevi) is a debt ridden theater projectionist who has promised to bootleg a much-hyped upcoming Thai horror film that concerns the vengeful spirit of a crazed village woman who was hanged after she had been discovered abducting and blinding children. After the disappearance of his friend who was taping the movie in the theater with his DV-cam, Shane recovers the DV-cam and sees footage of his friend cowering in fright at something he had seen. When Shane runs the horror movie for himself at the theater again, he is shocked to see his friend inside the movie with his eyes gouged out. The next day as the movie theatre staff look for the missing bootleg, Shane encounters Shomba (Oraphan Arjsamat) the evil spirit depicted in the movie in several places. Eventually, he finds out the terrible secret behind the haunted movie.

Shane and Som (Vorakan Rojchanawat) take a trip out to Shomba's original house fearing that her ghost is chasing after Shane for watching the movie. They want to destroy her remains so she is no longer able to chase after Shane. They get to the house and Shane falls through the open hole in the floor after saving Som from being hit by a ceiling fan. They go to a hospital and the doctor asks Shane and Som why they went into the house. They respond saying how they wanted to see Shomba's final resting place. The doctor tells then that Shomba was not killed by the villagers but was at a mental hospital. At the filming company that made the horror movie, Shane sees the film showing the actress playing out the hanging scene multiple times. The director then complains that she is a horrible actress unable to die properly. Then the actress pleads at the director to try once more to perfect the scene.

The director takes another scene and one crew starts to notice that the safety bar for the rope around the actress' neck was broken from the actress' struggle to act the scene perfectly. After a few minutes, the actress then dies and the crew starts to tend her up but they found out she was already dead. Shane suddenly finds out that the reason why Shomba haunts the viewers, including the other crews was for her revenge on why would they publish the movie, despite of her being dead.

Shomba then continues to haunt Shane (Which is Chen in Thai) Till the point Shane suddenly enters a room where his other friends has no eyes already. He didn't knew that Som (EX Girlfriend of Shane) was actually watching him on the screen of the theatre he works at. Som then saw Shomba's hands starts to gouge Shane's eyes out, screaming for his name, and crying for sadness

Critical reception

Slasherpool felt that the film had some decent scary moments and that the script was sound. They noted that first-time director Sopon Sukdapisit might not have had a lot of experience, with some obvious flaws, and "rookie" mistakes, and nothing very innovative, suggesting that he stick to writing. The opined that it "is a movie destined to be remade"..."worth watching if you're in the mood for a decent ghost story but don't expect to get blown away." When reviewed by Movie Exclusive, they summarized by saying "Coming Soon doesn't have enough to be an instant classic, but it bodes well for the GMM Tai Hub stable that they're still a force to be reckoned with when it comes to raking up the scares". The Fridae Movie Club thought the film had promise when they wrote "Coming Soon has a sharp film-within-a-film concept, further proof of Sophon Sakdapisit’s screenwriting talents", but noted its lacks when writing "But the direction falls way short of the ambitious script." This same opinion was shared by Fangoria, which wrote "Sakdapisit tosses in a few effective setpieces and plenty of gouged-out eyes, but the majority of Coming Soon feels overly familiar and illogical".