Ghost on Air (2012) User Reviews

Perhaps Auntie Lucy would have been more entertaining starring in this movie as a damsel haunted by ghosts from her lover's past

[moviexclusive · 1/10 · 24 May 2012]

Ghost On Air tells the story of Ping Xiao (Dennis Chew), a two-time "Most Popular DJ" award winner, who was suddenly removed from his primetime show in the morning after a scandal. Threatened by a young uprising starlet DJ Pauline (Eunice Olsen) usurping his position as the top DJ in the radio station. Ping Xiao forced himself to conquer his fear and painful memories of his recently deceased girlfriend, Jia Yi (Gan Mei Yan) by telling ghost stories written by her on air during the graveyard time slots. As he slowly regains his popularity, he begins to realize that not all the stories are works of fiction and decides to investigate by tracing back the path taken by his girlfriend. As he gets closer to the truth, something else also gets closer to him.

Ghost On Air is a pinnacle of what a horror movie should not be. It is filled with cliché and incongruence plot that does nothing in engaging the audience. Old creepy lady. Checked. Old and dusty room. Checked. Abundance of eerie music. Checked. Woman victims dripping with blood. Checked. Protagonist with repeated nightmares. Checked, checked, checked. In fact, most of the chill factors of this movie, limited as they are, come in the form of nightmares or vivid imagination of the lead character. These, sadly, get too frequent and repetitive that they become normal sequences that are pointless and no longer frightful.

Director Cheng Ding An, who is also the scriptwriter and producer of the film, lacks the flair of Pang Brothers (The Eye, 2002) in creating macabre atmosphere for the movie. Ghost On Air, being his second directorial effort and first foray into the horror genre, is dragged down by sudden change in scenes, uneven pacing and the overwhelming background music that gets louder as Ping Xiao approaches something expectedly unexpected. This background music, more often than not, backfires and ends up warning the audience to get prepared for a cheap scare tactic laden heavily throughout the film. Without the much needed element of surprise, this film is actually a snooze fest. Furthermore, the script shows no character development or enough backstory for the audience to care for or empathize with the characters, either alive or dead. Ghost On Air failed on so many levels that it amount to nothing more than three back-to-back episodes of Incredible Tales on Channel 5, and hardly come close to what the Best of Incredible Tales has to offer.

Dennis Chew as the male lead, Ping Xiao, lacks the screen gravitas and presence to carry the movie. His acting also left much to be desired. He, having limited acting experience outside of his more popular alter ego - Auntie Lucy, is effective enough in the radio studio since he is a real life DJ but this does not take much effort. Once his character is out of the studio, his amateurish acting becomes apparent and unbearable. Likewise, Eunice Olsen as the popular Mandarin speaking DJ is as convincing as the fact that ghosts walk among us since she cannot even articulate her lines clearly and well enough. Gan Mei Yan, another real life DJ, does not have the chance to convince the audience that she can be a bankable actress since her scenes are far and few. She also has zero chemistry with her reel life partner, making the core motivation for Ping Xiao to move to the dubious and haunted shop house abruptly laughable and questionable.

In all, Ghost On Air, due to its inexperienced cast and crew, is certainly not on par with the standard of a locally produced movie.

A Nutshell Review: Ghost on Air

[DICK STEEL · 1/10 · 20 May 2012]

the formula almost always has the spooked getting into an investigations of sorts to determine the unfinished business of the spook. By now, horror film aficionados can rattle off a list of why ghouls return to haunt certain people, and now all, before finally being defeated, addressed and put to rest. I put the blame squarely on poor pieces like 23:59, which showed how a film with a truncated run time, little plot, and illogical (even in horror fantasy terms) or even lazy development of scenes and characters, but making enough dough to proclaim it a success at the box office. It worked no thanks to audiences rewarding it where it matters, and now, we get the kind of films we deserve.

Writer-director Cheng Ding An made his first feature film based on the Singapore football heydays of the 70s, and no effort got spared in trying to recreate the atmosphere of those glory days, meticulously, as best as budget would provide, crafting the sets, costumes, and going all out to look for look-alike folks, never mind if they aren't professional actors nor can kick a football to save their lives, and re-enacting from television scenes of how the football in iconic matches actually played out. The National Stadium got utilized and training got underway to whip them all into shape, and fusing it with so much nationalistic fervour that Kallang Roar is now a National Education staple. It had challenges that any typical first time feature film would possess, but what it had that cannot be ignored was its stout heart and sincerity.

The film was far from a resounding box office success, and I suppose this may have provoked the writer-director to embark on a genre that would provide better returns to its investors. The premise is not bad at all, playing upon our fears yet fascination in listening to horror stories, and collaborating with a real life DJ to craft a story around the central character of a DJ no less, who gets relegated into the graveyard shift no thanks to a moment of pub indiscretion that damaged his idol reputation, and as an idea for a radio show, decides to read off his dead ex-girlfriend's unpublished novel. As luck would have it, his ex's stories seem to be rooted in some form of reality that she had experienced while renting a room at a shop selling funeral paraphernalia, and it's not before long that he too faces down with the ghouls that had once haunted his partner.

Alas, what works on paper may not translate to film, and what we got was pretty much a lot of unnecessary plot distractions, hampered by weak acting. It's about time filmmakers here have to think about properly developing a story, and having scenes that make sense when transiting to and from the next or previous. It's also about time that they cast real, professional actors, or at least anyone who can act decently, because solo expressions carried throughout a film does not a good actor make. What goes on in Ghost Talk is pretty haphazardly put together, with the film guilty at launching into lengthy build ups to find a moment to unleash scary mayhem, again dipping into the usual 101 bag of tricks.

With a plot that didn't work much, the actors all have their work cut out for them, and more often than not they turn out to be weak caricatures. Dennis Chew may have nailed it as the cross dresser with his extremely famous Aunty Lucy get up, so much so that Aunty Lucy can command appearances in feature films on her own, sans makeup Dennis' Ping Xiao just cannot flesh out his troubled DJ character, relying on one note acting that makes Keanu Reeves look like Oscar award winning material in every film he had played in. Worst are his co-stars in Samuel Chong and Eunice Olsen in playing Ping Xiao's boss and rival respectively who together may have an unspoken fling, and adding to Olsen's beauty queen and NMP titles, she has also now earned the flower vase in a feature film title to add into her resume. With Ping Xiao's ex Jia Yi (Gan Mei Yan, also a real life DJ) being crucial to the plot, you'd wonder if DJs should stick to their day jobs and leave acting to actors instead.

The only positives in the film are its technical production values, with its rich sound-scape standing out from the crowd, but with anything good going, it got abused and abused bad. You cannot deny Dennis Chew has a voice meant for the airwaves, and it shows up in the film especially when he launches into his lonesome, eerie shift duties and delivering stories that will send up some chills through the sound of his voice alone. Ghost On Air may have worked a lot better as a radio programme rather than a feature film, containing that mix mash of ideas from traditional spooky films to something more hip in recent years such as found footage from CCTV and record videos, but ultimately relegated itself through weak execution and a story that didn't live up to the potential spelt out in its premise.