Anomaly Film Festival Coverage
Dead Talents Society review
A fast-paced and wildly entertaining look at the world of afterlife influencers.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Dead Talents Society
Directed by John Hsu
Written by John Hsu and Kun-Lin Tsai
Starring Bo-lin Chen, Sandrine Pinna, Gingle Wang, Ching-i Pai, Soso Tseng, Di-Yang Huang, Zach Ireland and Lung Lung
Dead Talents Society Review
The Saturday night screening at this year’s Anomaly Film Festival was headlined by Taiwanese feature Dead Talents Society. It was preceded by Match, a short film from writer/director Victor Basallote. Match is the story of a young woman who swipes right on the wrong profile and ends up inviting in something strange. It’s a strong concept with a few good scares in its brief 8-minute runtime. Unlike most of the shorts paired with features during the festival…Match isn’t quite as perfect a fit for Dead Talents Society. Though…it’s hard to imagine many short films (pardon the pun) matching the manic energy of this feature.
Dead Talents Society is a wild one. Essentially, it’s the story of influencer culture in the afterlife. Ghosts scare humans to gain a following…a following that is necessary to keep themselves from fading away. Staying relevant beyond death is an interesting concept. Combining it with urban legend hauntings of our reality…and then playing it for laughs (with a touch of emotion) …turns Dead Talents Society into something special. If anything, the movie may be a bit too busy to accomplish everything that it’s trying to. It nails more than enough to be a blast to watch.
The story begins by introducing us to the world of influencers in the afterlife. That’s right…we have an influencer movie! But wait! We finally have a fresh take on the subject to talk about. Dead Talents Society flips the script by making influencer work a life and death situation. Or, I suppose, an afterlife and permanent death situation. Relevancy and remembrance are the keys to keeping ghosts from slipping into the void forever. It’s a brilliant twist on ghost hauntings.
We meet famous ghost Catherine (Sandrine Pinna) whose haunted hotel room is the stuff of legend in our world. Dead Talents Society wastes no time establishing its fun tone by showing us a behind the scenes look at how these hauntings come together. Catherine’s protégé Jessica (Yao Yi Ti) breaks out of her shadow and becomes the afterlife’s most famous influencer. Catherine’s fame is on the brink of obscurity when The Rookie (Gingle Wang) joins her crew in desperate need of immediate fame…or she will vanish forever.
Dead Talents Society crams a lot into its story. There are emotional beats of being forgotten once we pass on. The found family aspect that warms the heart. Professional rivalries and jealousies that lead to self-conscious thoughts. It’s all coated in layers of comedic paint. This is a funny (and fun) movie that throws so much at the screen it can barely be contained. It might be trying to balance too many things at once…but it lands the most necessary parts with style.
The world built in Dead Talents Society is an impressive one. It presents a logical, if fantastical, take on the afterlife…and the importance of being remembered. It feels like a peak through the curtains on how (and why) we have ghosts. Then it examines the people who now fill those ghostly roles and finds heart and humanity to mix with its comedic scares.
Performances are uniformly excellent. Each actor brings comedic chops to go along with the surprisingly dramatic moments. The Rookie is devastated by her situation and lacks the confidence to become the star she needs to be. Catherine is past her prime in the haunting world and afraid to get too close to anyone new after Jessica leapfrogged her into fame. Wang and Pinna fill these roles perfectly. They’re supported by a cast of scene stealers led by Bo-lin Chen as the mustachioed Makoto…the man who brings the two women together…and is hiding a hilarious secret.
This is a slickly produced, wildly fast-paced, feel-good story at heart. In lesser hands Dead Talents Society could have been an empty commentary on influencer culture (see almost every movie on the subject). Co-writer/director John Hsu adds a lot of depth to the characters and their situations. So much it would overwhelm most comedies. Nothing can overwhelm the zany, madcap spirit that carried Dead Talents Society through the afterlife. Fun effects, great characters, poignant moments…it packs them all in.
There is a slight Beetlejuice feel to the way the ghosts conduct their business. Dead Talents Society doesn’t go full Burton with the design…but the spirit wouldn’t feel out of place in his Neitherworld. The story bounces back and forth between character moments, comedic beats while scaring the living and the drama that surrounds loss in an effortless way…never losing the overall magic of the story. If (like me) you’ve grown tired of films with the world “influencer” anywhere near the plot description…Dead Talents Society is here to show you that there is still life in that old story. Or…afterlife, anyway.
Scare Value
It took a while…but we finally got a fresh take on influencer culture. We just had to die for it to happen. Or, well…someone else did. Dead Talents Society has a blast with its influencers in the afterlife concept. It moves a bit too fast for every beat to land…but the found family aspects work as intended. A fun watch from start to finish.
