Movie · 2025 · Comedy, Drama, Fantasy · 2h 10m · TH
Curator score: 7.2/10 (14.6K ratings)
Love sucks.
Overview
Worried about her husband being allergic to dust, Nat, a recently-dead woman, returns as a ghost possessing a vacuum cleaner to clean the house and protect her family from other vengeful ghosts in the house. To become a useful ghost, she needs to get rid of the useless ones.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.2/10
IMDb: 6.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.67/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Metacritic: 85
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
Production
185 Films, Haut les Mains, Momo Film Co, Mayana Films, Hubert Bals Fund
Amazon Prime Video, Hoopla, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sly, surreal Thai ghost comedy that uses a wildly original premise to explore grief, queer identity, class resentment, and the politics of memory. It’s funniest and most affecting when it stays deadpan and intimate, even if the narrative gets a little overstuffed.
Best for
Viewers who like absurdist, deadpan humor
Fans of ghost stories with emotional and political subtext
People drawn to queer-coded allegory and social satire
Audiences open to surreal, art-house genre hybrids
Skip if
You want a straightforward plot with clean rules
You dislike slow-burn, idea-driven comedies
You prefer horror that plays its supernatural elements straight
You’re not in the mood for allegory or political metaphor
Overview
A Useful Ghost is one of those rare genre films that feels genuinely unclassifiable in the best way. It starts with a premise so ridiculous it could collapse under its own joke, then keeps finding new emotional and political uses for it: grief, domestic labor, class anxiety, queer longing, and the stubborn persistence of memory all get folded into the same strange machine.
Worth noting
The film’s deadpan tone is a big part of the appeal. It treats ghosts as part of everyday life, which lets the comedy land without undercutting the sadness. The vacuum-cleaner possession gag is memorable, but the movie’s real trick is how it turns that absurd image into a surprisingly tender story about care, inheritance, and what it means to be useful in a world that discards people and histories.
Bottom line
It can feel overextended as it widens its ambitions, and some viewers may wish for a tighter, more focused shape. Still, the freshness of the vision is hard to deny. Even when it gets messy, it remains inventive, politically sharp, and emotionally unusual in a way that lingers.
Top Letterboxd reviews
augustemars (4.5★) · 964 likes
Was expecting a fantastic comedy with ghosts haunting vacuum cleaners in Thailand being a metaphor for queer relationships, and I got that but it was also a criticism of capitalism and how it erases history, how assimilation requires you to step on other people, how tradition is something to remember but also something to go beyond because it can oppress you, a testimony that memory is necessary to build a healthy future, a call for transmission, a call for resistance,… more Was expecting a fantastic comedy with ghosts haunting vacuum cleaners in Thailand being a metaphor for queer relationships, and I got that but it was also a criticism of capitalism and how it erases history, how assimilation requires you to step on other people, how tradition is something to remember but also something to go beyond because it can oppress you, a testimony that memory is necessary to build a healthy future, a call for transmission, a call for resistance,… more
Philbert Dy (4.5★) · 508 likes
I wish this was tighter, but you have to give leeway to new visions. And this is a very new vision: a mostly deadpan comedic Thai film about ghosts that possess appliances that somehow manages to also be a deeply felt political statement about the lack of accountability for the ruling class. Very based. Very cool.
A thing I like generally in Asian movies is any depiction of ghosts where they're just treated as a part of life. Like, people… more
grandebavardeuse (5★) · 279 likes
Que mon aspirateur ne soit pas un sale révisionniste de merde et que mon frigo abrite l’esprit d’un antifasciste (prière du soir)
ari (4★) · 259 likes
walked outside to a guy smoking crack in fed square, but I had already watched this movie so I didn't need any.
john (4★) · 217 likes
Why work through grief when you can just fuck your ghost wife, who happens to be possessing a vacuum cleaner?