The Ancestral Review

The Ancestral review.

The Ancestral can stand on its own as a haunted house movie…but it’s the story’s examination of grief from different perspectives that elevates it above standard fare.

New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.

The Ancestral streams exclusively on Screambox May 2.

The Ancestral

Directed by Le-Van Kiet

Written by Le-Van Kiet

Starring Lam Tanh My, Mai Cat Vi, Quang Tuan and Dieu Nhi

The Ancestral Review

The Ancestral doesn’t see all its ideas tie together in a perfect bow…but its bevy of creative swings that connect often.  On the surface this is a story about sleep paralysis and a haunted house.  Beneath that sits a more interesting discussion of grief and the struggle to understand loss.  What’s really going on is a matter of whose perspective you are seeing it from.

Following the death of his wife, Thang (Quang Tuan) moves his daughters Linh (Lam Thanh My) and Yen (Mai Cat Vi) into an old family estate.  The younger Yen suffers from sleep paralysis and sees things around the home that shouldn’t be.  When Linh sees them too…they fear something more sinister is afoot. 

The Ancestral doesn’t have a twist in the traditional sense.  What it employs is clever usage of when to reveal information.  We see what Thang’s children see.  Strange, scary looking people wandering the yard and vanishing into the night.  Linh is our clue that this is more than just a story of her sister’s sleep trauma.  The movie eventually tells us what is happening…and while not exactly a twist…it is an interesting story escalation.  It’s also not the only explanation that the movie offers.

I was reminded of the movie The Pact.  In that film we discover that two things were true at the same time.  There was, in fact, a ghost in the haunted house.  There was also a very corporeal danger that was changing the way we perceived it.  The Ancestral has a similar trick.  The deeper you follow its story the more it becomes clear that, on top of the explanation the movie presents, this is a story about grief.  Grief and understanding.

We spend a lot of time with Thang’s children in The Ancestral.  They serve as our main characters and the perspective we are given the most often.  Aside from their father and a psychologist brought in to help Yen with her sleep issues…the only other characters are the strange apparitions wandering around the grounds.  It’s important to note whose perspective we are seeing.  At times it will switch to Thang…and that’s when the story starts to change in unexpected ways.

The source of Yen’s trauma is clearly tied to her mother’s death.  The psychologist is keen on helping Yen suppress her bad memories…believing that it is the way to cure her sleep paralysis.  Whether that is the right medicine or not…it doesn’t change the fact that Linh is seeing things as well.  Although he denies it for a large part of the story…when we see things through Thang’s perspective, we know that he is as well.  But they don’t always see the same thing.

For the purposes of non-spoiler discussion, we will leave this as vague as possible.  Instead, we’ll consider why each character is plagued by visions in the first place.  Thang’s come from a place of grief.  He is doing all that he can to do right by his daughters…we see that from their perspective.  But he’s also consumed by the sadness of losing his wife.  Yen’s sleep paralysis is the product of something that she knows but can’t fully understand.  What Linh sees come from not knowing something…actually…two things.  One explains the monsters around the home.  The other is more metaphysical…and applies to both children.

Essentially…children know something is wrong with a parent even if they can’t understand what it is.  Thang’s grief is hidden away for the first half of the movie as we see things through Linh and Yen’s eyes.  At least we think it is.  His character change seems to come out of nowhere when we are let in on his perspective.  The truth is that the children were seeing his trauma the entire time…they just couldn’t understand it.  It’s one of multiple answers that The Ancestral has in store.  It’s the combination of reasons that makes the story stand out.

It’s also the biggest flaw in the movie.  Things never fully come together after we discover all the hidden truths.  Perhaps it will work on repeated viewings…but on first watch much of it comes off as throwing things against a wall to see what sticks.  Even though the explanations (both the spelled-out ones and the slightly deeper ones) make sense…it is applied too sloppily at points to fully wrap your head around.

That’s not to say they aren’t used to fine effect.  There is some fantastic imagery in The Ancestral.  Le-Van Kiet has made a good-looking, patient, confident picture, and times the reveals well.  What’s just out of frame can be scary.  A scene while Linh is in the yard among sheets drying on clotheslines is a standout.  Performances are strong across the board…with the child actors shouldering most of the load.  They do a fantastic job relaying the gamut of emotions thrust upon them.

The Ancestral makes an intriguing story out of a familiar set-up.  Some loose application of its clever concepts keeps it from fully attaining the heights it may have.  The quality production and performances provide an eminently watchable film…your patience with it paying off more often than not.

Scare Value

The Ancestral offers an unexpected reason for some of its spookier proceedings. A story turn that works on the surface…then becomes much more when you consider what’s happening beneath it. Excellent child actors do a lot of the film’s heavy lifting. Le-Van Kiet gives us a good-looking, patient haunted house story with multiple explanations for its hauntings. The most interesting of which deals with different people’s perceptions of grief and loss.

3.5/5

The Ancestral Link

Streaming on Screambox May 2

The Ancestral Trailer

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