In “Rigor Mortis,” an actor in decline named Chin (Siu-Ho Chin) moves into a decrepit apartment building, an emblem of industrial creepiness where his own decay is matched by the run-down facilities and the sadness of the few tenants that remain. It’s unclear exactly why Chin is reduced to living in such a building, or the events in his life that have left his face empty and lifeless (a dead child is briefly alluded to, the rest is left to the viewer to imagine). But Chin’s real estate choice makes more sense as he tries to kill himself soon after moving in, only to be saved by Yau (Anthony Chan), who was once trained as a vampire hunter but now is running a restaurant in the building (apparently sticky rice is instrumental to both professions, maybe someone more acquainted with Asian monster mythology can explain that to me).
After Chin’s suicide attempt, he learns of the macabre past of both the building and specifically his room. A young couple once lived there and the husband tutored two twin girls. One day, he raped one of the girls until her twin intervened with a pair of scissors. She managed to kill the assailant, but the pair - brutalized, horrified, despairing – ended up taking their own lives as well, in a manner mirroring Chin’s own attempt, leaving behind two angry spirits. Meanwhile, the devastated wife and young child of the dead assailant still eke out an almost feral existence in the building, mostly surviving from food offerings the other tenants leave in the hallway; she is a figurative ghost in a building full of literal ones.
The past and present come together when a tenant dies and his otherwise pleasant wife is reduced to any means to keep him alive, allowing a black magic practitioner to turn him into a vampire (in Western monster terms, it seemed more like a zombie or golem – a re-animated corpse – but the Chinese have different monsters that are sometimes confusingly translated). The powerful corpse of the vampire becomes even more formidable when possessed by the angry spirits of the twin girls, creating a nearly unstoppable monster that Chin and Yau must team up to destroy.
I never completely understood the exact logic of the story, but it mattered little as I was carried away by the spectacular visuals. Writer-director Juno Mak makes great use of the spooky interiors of the crumbling building, but the real attraction are the eye-popping effects he uses to show the building’s otherworldly tenants. Unlike too many American horror films that are dominated by shaky, ugly, faux found footage, Mak gives his spirits a cinematic sense of dangerous beauty, they awaken a reaction equal parts awe and terror. Chin is a mostly colorless protagonist, quiet and haunted, while his partner Yau is more memorable, the latest in a lineage of vampire hunters who spends most the film in a wardrobe of sandals and bathrobe that would feel at home in “The Big Lebowski.” “Rigor Mortis” is a capable reworking of Asian horror tropes with a gory and thrilling final battle that is elevated over its horror peers by inventive visuals.
