Fridae

This Maid-in-Singapore horror film stars Alessandra De Rossi as
Rosa, a young Filipina woman who leaves her homeland to work as
a maid in Singapore.

Rosa is a lucky girl. Her employers (played by TV drama veterans
Chen Shu Cheng and Hong Hui Fang) live in a two-storey shophouse
— which means she won't be seriously hurt if she falls out
of the window while hanging out the laundry.

She has also arrived during the Seventh Month of the Chinese calendar,
when the gates of hells are temporarily open and the souls of the
dead can stretch their legs — so Rosa has a perfectly good
excuse not to see the Merlion for at least a month. Lucky her!

Rosa is quite happy with her new job — she should be, we
hardly see her do any serious housework — until she accidentally
sweeps up a pile of paper money burnt for the dead. That's when
weird things start to happen?

Directed by Kelvin Tong (Eating Air, showing at Screen
Singapore this month), The Maid boasts plenty of cheap
scares and a few good ones, so you'd best bring along your macho
tops or chapstick lesbian partners to cling to. Every ten minutes,
the music cranks up and something creepy happens.

When Fridae previewed it last weekend, the crowd could not stop
screaming?for the first hour. After that, everyone got so tired
of being on the edge of their seats for so long, that they just
ceased to care. The Maid works way too hard, no pun intended.

Not quite as good as the finest of Asian horror (like Ringu,
Nang Nak or Shutter) but still worth a look.