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So, if you don’t know me or you don’t remember my previous Drama Spotlight, I’ve been trying to watch at least one drama a month. I want to watch more, I need to try and adapt to watching longer things, and I tasked myself to write articles on the ones I really like. For this challenge, I pretty much watch whatever may be relevant for other articles I’m working on and go from there. The ones I found as 8 stars or more out of ten, I decide if I write an article for it or not.
For this instalment of my monthly challenge, I wanted to talk about Thailand’s popular drama ThirTEEN Terrors. This is Thailand’s second most popular horror show on MDL (concerning users marking it on currently watching, completed, etc.) and it was one of the ones I watched looking to give some Thai horror recommendations. I don’t watch many dramas at all, so I chose this one because of its user rating and went for it, being my eighth drama of the site; Netflix pushing this at me also played a part, as it did with Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, my previous Spotlight that can be found here.
Quickly consuming each episode as I went through this, hooked and chilled to my core, here’s why these just short of 10 hours of drama should be on your currently watching list.
Stats
Every school has a past that people want to be concealed. There are things that happened that people don't want to talk about. There are students whom people want to forget. And there are secrets waiting for the day that they're revealed.
Genres: Thriller, Horror, School, Drama
Country: Thailand
Episodes: 13
Duration: 45 minutes
Average Rating: 7.8/10 from 261 users
Rating: 15+ - Teens 15 or Older
Spoken Language: Thai
Release Date: November 8, 2014 - January 31, 2015
The Episodes
ThirTEEN Terrors is a compilation drama, meaning each episode has a different cast and focuses on a different story.
Let me recap the episodes so, if need be, you can pick and choose which episodes you want to watch versus going through all of them. Spoiler-free – all summaries come from the first 5 - 7 minutes of each episode. Ratings per episode were not able to be given as the episodes aren’t as commonly rated and some only have my own user rating.
Episode 1: Wanida
Two girls stumble across an old curse about their school. If you see a girl’s head staring at you from a desk drawer, you have two days to find her head and put her to rest before you die.
Episode 2: Our Death
When Im rejects her ex-boyfriend, Ball, he commits suicide. Soon, Im finds that his spirit is haunting her.
Episode 3: The Jinx
After a small fight, one boy curses his friend to die in a car crash. When his friend dies in one soon after, he finds himself haunted.
Episode 4: Unsolicited Calls
After faking his suicide to his mother, a young man finds that he and his mother are victims to unsolicited calls continuously.
Episode 5: Grandfather Som
The House of Pu Som Ruesi is a medical establishment that heals people with black magic. After something goes wrong with a classmate, Wann, the daughter of the woman who runs the house, finds out that black magic has its consequences.
Episode 6: Alluring Abomination
Aun falls for a girl in his tutorial school. Upon getting closer to her, things may not quite be as they seem.
Episode 7: A Night of Disobedience
When five students stay behind after school to finish their club room, they can’t get past the school’s security guard to go home. They decide to stay until morning and break into the school’s pool.
Episode 8: Spy Cam
After a prank in the girls’ restroom goes wrong and a girl goes into shock and ends up in the hospital, a full investigation into the girls’ bathroom occurs.
Episode 9: Ignorance is Bliss
At school, there are rumours that some of the mannequins come to life after hours.
Episode 10: The Stains/Traces
A girl moves into a new school to replace the seat of a girl who previously killed herself. Strange things begin to happen to her as her days go by in the semester.
Episode 11: Roommates
After her parents die, a young girl is sent to her aunt in Thailand. She is sent to an apartment to live by herself where she fears she may not be the only one living there.
Episode 12: The Melodies
After some school bullies lock a boy in the music room, they seem to awaken the dormant ghost that has resided in there since its suicide.
Episode 13: The Blue Hour
An adaption of the film The Blue Hour. Bullied teen Tam and his boyfriend Phum spend their time at a supposedly haunted swimming pool. However, strange things begin to occur as time goes on.
Cast
There are just too many cast members to really summarize them all, so I wanted to focus on the top four that I really loved watching in this series when discussing the cast:
These four were the standout cast for me when watching ThirTEEN Terrors.
Fon gives us an absolutely stunning part in the first episode and honestly was the reason that I decided to dedicate the time to binge this series through, rather than just leaving it to watch an episode at a time. She brought us a well-rounded role, a girl who was as scared as she was smart, making the best decisions she could at the same time while dealing with such a horrifying experience.
Sirinya brought us a stunning look at a revenge line that truly felt vengeful, upset and angry. This episode stood out to me due to the content and the character of Cherry, who really made me shiver once or twice despite the special effects. Her acting was just stunning and felt like Cherry was who we saw on screen. She didn't feel like a character; she felt like an actual three-dimensional person.
Gunn brought us a mischievous but fun lad who just wanted to make videos and have some fun. When thrown into a hard situation, he's smart, cunning and does his best to do what he can, and you really rooted for Turk despite his shortcomings. For a character like Turk, I feel that it was well done on Gunn's part to make him this character we actually did like; a young man pranking young women, being a bit of a menace – it can be hard, sometimes, to make viewers root for a character like this, and Gunn did it brilliantly.
Thanaerng brought us a stunning, strong female lead that I just absolutely fell in love with. Tong is a troublemaker character who deals with what she can and does her best despite knowing the situations she's in. She completely sold me on "Strong Female Lead" tags on Thai media, and due to her, I will be watching more in the future.
Many other cast in this series came together to make stunning episodes, but for me, these four were the ones that left a lasting impression and made me want to watch more, watch more of them and further discover their dramas and films.
Plot
So... it's hard to summarize the whole series with a plot format, and I've pretty much done that when listing the episodes. Again, I decided to just point out some of the episodes I really liked – the ones that scared me, made me paranoid, or I felt were the best written.
 | Episode 3 - The Jinx I'll admit, I don't think too much of the horror in this one. For episode three, I liked the attention to detail in known spiritual beliefs in Thailand, which made this feel much more rounded and – to a degree – a little more realistic. This had some good spook factor, it was solid in plot, and the acting was well done all round. Easily, a solid 8/10. |
Episode 6 - Alluring Abomination This episode struck me as one that was slightly sad as time went on, and the twists in this one made me feel for the characters that we weren't really supposed to like. This was quite dark, and there were some plot twists that took me by surprise. This one stayed with me for quite a while after finishing the series and played in my head a few times after. 9/10 |  |
 | Episode 7 - A Night of Disobedience This episode left me feeling quite... forlorn and melancholic, and I think it deserves mention here. The acting in this was brilliant, the story was very well-written, and this was one of the episodes that I really couldn't draw my eyes away from. I won't say any more because I can't think of summaries without spoilers, but another 9/10. |
Episode 11 - Roommates This episode... I feel bad for Craig Claudine. Her acting in this was awkward and wooden and felt quite horrid overall; I couldn't connect to her character at all, and it wasn't fully enjoyable. I did, however, find this one of the scariest ones of the series due to my strong fear for what is shown in the episode; this one wins spooky points from me, but nowhere near anything else. 7.5/10 |  |
I did my best with this as it's a compilation series, so it was hard to go into full detail on everything, but there you have it! Did you see ThirTEEN Terrors? Do you want to have a look at the series now? Which episode was your favourite? Which cast member(s) did you prefer? View other articles by etherealtaekibum here. Edited by: Yuanwei (2nd editor) |
