What a view | HBO’s Folklore anthology returns with a second season of stories rooted in Asian superstitions and rituals; Netflix documentary Monsters Inside examines the many faces of Billy Milligan
- Season two of Folklore has more stories that explore superstitions, traditions and rituals, starting with a Taiwanese bride who comes apart in a strange town
- Monsters Inside on Netflix, subtitled The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan, is an examination of ‘the campus rapist’ who terrorised Ohio State University in 1977
Back to scare the pants off viewers around the region is the Asean of horror stories. Overseen by Singaporean creator Eric Khoo, the loose collective behind the Folklore anthologies is ready to unleash a six-part second series that feeds like a vampire off the superstitions, traditions and sometimes ghoulish rituals of Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore.
Khoo is again in overall charge of a director from each location; and first to expose the fragile human psyche to the ravages of supernatural malice is Taiwan’s Liao Shih-han. In The Rope (HBO and HBO Go, November 14), newlyweds Chien Ming-yin (Vivian Sung Yun-hua) and Shawn Lee (Wu Kang-ren) find that hosting their post-ceremony party next door to a purification ritual for the dead isn’t the best way to start a marriage.
The strange ways of an unnamed coastal town unsettle outsider Ming-yin, who, losing her grip on sanity, is told that she has been “cursed by the evil energy of the rope” glimpsed at the start of this flesh-prickler. Creeping bloodstains, malevolent spirits and a husband hiding a secret are going to require more than marriage counselling.
Inserting a discordant note into a burgeoning romance in the second instalment is Japanese pop superstar (and “Eternal Idol”) Seiko Matsuda, who makes her directorial debut with The Day the Wind Blew, starring Win Morisaki and Haori Takahashi.
Cheesy ballads and glow sticks aren’t the only frightening aspects of a story whose heroine is pursued by a literal éminence grise she can’t outrun and whose publicly adored singer hero is battling a manager threatening to turn into Colonel Tom Parker (who controlled much of Elvis Presley’s career). Will the eye-fluttering Ken and Mika make it safely to a joint, rousing chorus?
Successive fright nights are on Sundays for the duration of a series which proves that supernatural terror recognises no national boundaries.
