Horror films have been a part of Vietnamese cinema for a long time, since the heyday of the country’s film industry. But the genre's journey has been challenging. For one, its track record includes many films with low-budget production made in a rush for quick profit. Additionally, certain scary elements in horror films often face issues with age restrictions or require last-minute edits to secure approval for theatrical release. As a result, the horror genre in general has a mixed reputation among Vietnamese audience members.
When I began working on this article, I had a similar perception of the genre. My initial approach was to create a simple “Top 10 best Vietnamese horror films” list, selecting notable works from a pool of films that I expected to be underwhelming. However, upon observing the timeline of Vietnamese horror cinema, my perspective changed, because what I found most fascinating about this genre is its transformation over time.
So instead of a “best films” list, I aim to highlight key Vietnamese horror films from each decade, showcasing how the genre has evolved through different eras. The movies selected for this list may not be the best horror films ever, but their key characteristics and filmmaking approaches best reflect the trends and styles of horror cinema at the time they were created. Hopefully, by watching these films, viewers can gain a deeper insight into the strengths, flaws, and growth of Vietnamese horror cinema.
Horror film production before the 21st century
The earliest known attempt to create a Vietnamese horror film was Cánh Đồng Ma (Ghost Field, 1938). Written by Đàm Quang Thiện, a writer and doctor from Hanoi, the screenplay tells a psychological horror story about a series of murders near Hanoi’s Bảy Mẫu Lake. Due to a limited budget, it was co-produced with a Chinese investor, and filming took place in Hong Kong with an all-Vietnamese cast.
A newspaper ad showcasing Con Ma Nhà Họ Hứa (1973). Image via Nhạc Xưa.
The production faced major challenges as the Chinese investor pushed for a rushed release. They even altered the script without Thiện's consent, shifting the story focus to detective themes with action elements and alluring female characters. Cánh Đồng Ma hit theaters in 1938 in its altered state and unsurprisingly, it was heavily criticized by film fans, critics and even cast members.
After Cánh Đồng Ma, some articles state that there were other horror movies released throughout the 1930s and 1940s, such as Cô Nga Dạo Thị Thành (Ms. Nga’s City Stroll, 1939) and Khúc Khải Hoàn (Song of Victory, 1940). Unfortunately, these titles were made so long ago, that they are not available for streaming, and information about them is limited, so there is insufficient data to determine whether they can truly be classified as horror films.
It wasn't until the 1970s that Vietnamese horror films began to take clearer shape, with the release of Lệ Đá in 1971, marking an important milestone in the genre's development.
Lệ Đá (Tear of Stone, 1971) | Watch Lệ Đá here.
Lệ Đá chronicles the tale of two young lovers, Kỳ and Trang. After Trang tragically dies in a construction site accident, her spirit lingers still. Five years later, Trang returns, as her spirit inhabits the body of a recently deceased man. Trang, now trapped in the body of an old man, has to find a way to reunite with Kỳ to rekindle their lost love.
Lệ Đá can be watched in full on YouTube.
This film featured an all-Vietnamese cast and was directed by filmmaker Võ Doãn Châu. It was a box office success, largely due to the implementation of supernatural elements and the fact that it has the same name as a popular Vietnamese song. The cinematography also took advantage of Đà Lạt’s mist-filled scenery to create an unsettling atmosphere.
Another horror release that saw major success in the 1970s was Con Ma Nhà Họ Hứa (The Ghost of the Hui Family, 1973). Based on a popular Vietnamese urban legend about a rich family in Saigon-Chợ Lớn. The film was a box office hit, but unfortunately as of now, only the first 10 minutes of the film are accessible to the public.
After the reunification of Vietnam in 1975 and the country put its main focus on war-centric propaganda films, it took a while for horror movies to make their return. Specifically in the era of commercial films in the 1990s, films such as Ngôi Nhà Oan Khốc (The Wailing House) and Chiếc Mặt Nạ Da Người (The Human Skin Mask) arrived. Both 1992 movies reportedly performed quite well financially, but there's unfortunately no publicly accessible way to stream them at the moment.
While it’s difficult to fully analyze pre-2000s horror films, as many of them have become lost media, there are notable motifs from this era that were inherited by films in the next generations, such as how Lệ Đá dives into the concept of death and the afterlife, while films like Ngôi Nhà Oan Khốc and Con Ma Nhà Họ Hứa popularized the use of haunted, mysterious houses as the central settings. Furthermore, Đà Lạt, with its foggy hills and old French-style villas, became a popular setting for horror films, probably because of its association with ghost stories and urban legends. This tradition of filming horror movies in Đà Lạt continued to thrive in the following two decades.
The 2000s, the decade of international influences
After the 1990s, the horror genre saw a long hiatus, likely due to the rise of commercial cinema, which shifted focus to genres like drama and comedy. Eventually, horror movies made their arrival in the new century in 2007, with two releases, Mười and Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn. Both share a common pattern: they are heavily influenced by international cinema in various aspects.
Mười: Truyền thuyết về bức chân dung (Mười: The Legend of a Portrait, 2007) | Watch Mười here.
Mười follows South Korean author Yoon-hee, who is in search of inspiration for her next novel. Yoon-hee's long-lost friend Seo-yeon introduces her to the urban legend of Mười, which is about a girl who lived a tragic life and became a vengeful spirit after her death. Intrigued, Yoon-hee moves into Seo-yeon’s villa in Đà Lạt to research the topic, and soon uncovers many secrets about Mười, and a startling discovery about her long-lost friend.
This film is a collaboration between Vietnam’s Hãng Phim Phước Sang and South Korea's CJ Entertainment, marking the first Vietnam-Korea film partnership. As South Korean media is already popular in Vietnam and K-dramas are available on many families' cable TV, there was significant media buzz surrounding the film. As a result, it achieved impressive ticket sales, reportedly around VND30 billion.
But its biggest criticism also stemmed from this Vietnam-Korea partnership. The main characters are all Koreans with Vietnamese actors playing minimal roles, it ended up being more like a Korean film that has Vietnam as a setting, rather than a true collaboration between the two countries. Read Saigoneer's review of Mười here.
Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn (Mysterious House-Haunted River, 2007) | Watch Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn here.
Directed by Nguyễn Chánh Tín, this project isn’t a feature film but a two-episode showcase of the TV series that Tín wanted to produce: a 52-episode horror-drama anthology. This cinematic release was to help fund the production of future episodes and to attract potential investors for the series.
The first part of the showcase is Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn, which centers around a female director determined to create a documentary debunking the existence of ghosts. To do this, she moves into a house rumored to be haunted, but as eerie events unfold before her eyes, she finds her beliefs ruthlessly challenged.
The second part, Suối Oan Hồn, is a horror-thriller set in a barren land inhabited by only three families. Their peaceful lives are shattered as eerie animal howls begin echoing through the land every night, distressing them. Soon, they start witnessing terrifying, bloody visions that slowly drive them to madness.
The film was marketed as being inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho (1960). It incorporated several Hitchcockian techniques such as long tracking shots to build up suspense, and quick shots that jump between characters and their perspectives, immersing the audience in the characterss points of view. If the most iconic scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho takes place in the bathroom, Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn also features a jump scare in a toilet.
The film's overt showcasing of Hitchcock influences drew some criticism. The filmmakers applied Hitchcock's techniques in a straightforward manner, without a fresh, creative spin, leaving the film feeling somewhat dated and unoriginal to those familiar with global horror flicks.
To sum up, the 2000s served as a period of learning from international horror cinema, and these two films exemplify how filmmakers adopted those influences. They drew inspiration from Hollywood, as seen in Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn, and collaborated with countries known for more established film industries, such as in the case of Mười. Both films had moderate box office successes, and given their release period, they likely served as an introduction to Vietnamese horror cinema for many young Vietnamese from this current generation.
However, these films still have noticeable flaws in terms of production value, such as script quality, a lack of originality in their scare tactics, and most importantly, the presence of some Vietnamese identity on screen. These shortcomings would eventually be addressed by horror films released in the following two decades.
The 2010s, the commercialization of Vietnamese horror
Heading into the 2010s, things were looking up for the horror genre, with multiple releases earning praises for production quality, some of which even became big money makers. A key highlight was Quả Tim Máu, the highest-grossing Vietnamese horror film at the time whose success was so big that it kickstarted a new era of commercial horror movies.
Quả Tim Máu (Vengeful Heart, 2014) | Watch Quả Tim Máu here.
Quả Tim Máu follows Linh, who, after receiving a heart transplant, begins to experience unsettling visions and nightmares. This supernatural side effect causes her to sleepwalk all the way to the home of her heart donor, Phương. Touched by the hospitality of Phương’s family, Linh decides to stay with them for a few days, but soon, she uncovers the mystery surrounding Phương's untimely death.
Quả Tim Máu (2014).
Set in a haunted villa in Đà Lạt, the story revolves around the spirit of a person who died unjustly. While it uses familiar tropes from Vietnamese horror movies, it succeeded thanks to its well-executed visual effects, art direction and storyline. Directed by Victor Vũ, who is known for a variety of hits across genres, Quả Tim Máu broke box office records, making VND24 billion within three days of its premiere, an achievement that even Hollywood blockbusters couldn’t reach in Vietnamese theaters at the time.
Around the time when Quả Tim Máu was released, a few other horror works were also well-received, such as Lời Nguyền Huyết Ngải (Blood Curse, 2012) and Ngôi Nhà Trong Hẻm (House in the Alley, 2012). But what made Quả Tim Máu influential to many subsequent horror flicks was its bold casting choice of Thái Hòa in a lead role, as he was seen as more of a comedic actor. In the film, he added a touch of comedy and light-hearted moments to this otherwise frightening experience, and this approach soon became a model to emulate. Quả Tim Máu opened the floodgates for a wave of horror films with comedic elements.
While it's great that horror became more popular and gained more support from production companies, a number of later horror-comedy films attempted to replicate the success of Quả Tim Máu without fully understanding what made it work. As a result, while Quả Tim Máu carefully balanced horror and comedy, the films that followed its footsteps fell short with poorly executed jump scares mixed with characters constantly dropping one-liners.
By the end of the decade, the trend of horror-comedy had evolved in a new direction. The movies released during the final years of the 2010s began to tackle one previous shortcoming of Vietnamese horror cinema: creating scary stories that resonate with Vietnamese. A prime example of this is Bắc Kim Thang, the release of which foreshadowed the type of Vietnamese horror that would dominate the next decade.
Bắc Kim Thang (Home Sweet Home, 2019) | Watch Bắc Kim Thang here.
This film follows Thiện Tâm, who returns home in the Mekong Delta after a long period of medical treatment in the city. Upon returning, he finds out that his grandfather is becoming increasingly ill, and his sister has gone missing. But the strange thing is, the remainder of his family seems suspiciously indifferent about it.
According to some reviews, while its narrative still could use some improvement, Bắc Kim Thang was applauded for its relatability in storytelling and world-building. Set in the 1990s, the film tackles the issue of chauvinism within family dynamics. The film's scenes of family meals and locations full of rivers and farmland all aim to portray an accurate image of rural life in southwestern Vietnam.
Bắc Kim Thang enjoyed success in ticket sales and was even showcased at Busan International Film Festival, one of the biggest film festivals in Asia. While not a flawless film, it was appreciated thanks to its exploration of themes that resonate with Vietnamese people, an approach that at least one review believed could set a precedent for future productions. Read Saigoneer's review of Bắc Kim Thang here.
While there was no actual explanation for why horror filmmakers started changing their directions, some deductions can be drawn from the film industry at the time. The 2010s was also a busy time for international cinema. A report in 2019 stated that Vietnamese theaters were largely dominated by films from abroad, with approximately 40 local releases compared to around 200 foreign ones. Perhaps, the saturation of foreign films in theaters led audiences and filmmakers to gravitate toward more locally relevant works.
The 2020s, time to find define Vietnamese horror
After a long pause due to COVID-19, the Vietnamese horror genre made its comeback by fully embracing the approach seen in Bắc Kim Thang, which focused on bringing the Vietnamese identity onto the screen. And the audience wholeheartedly welcomed it, an article from September 2024 pointed out that horror films were gaining significant popularity, with several major commercial successes. There are two standout films from this period, Kẻ Ăn Hồn and Quỷ Cẩu. Both films drew in many viewers, perhaps because they effectively integrated Vietnamese cultural elements in different ways, making them notable examples of the genre's evolution.
Kẻ Ăn Hồn (The Soul Reaper, 2023) | Watch Kẻ Ăn Hồn here.
This film unfolds in a remote village burdened by a curse that prevents anyone from ever leaving. On top of this, someone in the village is secretly brewing The Skull Wine, an ancient form of dark magic that requires the harvest of human blood and body parts. And as a series of murders takes place, it’s up to the villagers to identify the culprit.
Kẻ Ăn Hồn (2023).
Kẻ Ăn Hồn garnered attention for its art direction. As the story takes place in Vietnam during the 16th–17th century, traditional costumes are used, and meticulous set design brings the rural setting to life. The film also moves away from the usual scare tactics of its predecessors, avoiding excessive jump scares and saying goodbye to villas in Đà Lạt. Instead, the foggy mountains and surrounding forests create an eerie, mystical ambiance that adds to the film’s atmosphere. The soundtrack, featuring traditional Vietnamese instruments, amplifies the creepy elements. The inclusion of cultural elements in the narrative, such as children's folk songs and Vietnamese paper dolls, also brings a sense of horror that originates from a familiar place.
Released during a time when many local films were struggling in ticket sales, Kẻ Ăn Hồn unexpectedly achieved significant ticket sales. It surpassed Quả Tim Máu to become the highest-grossing Vietnamese horror film as of December 2023, marking a stellar comeback for the genre in the 2020s. Still, horror fans might be elated to find that Kẻ Ăn Hồn’s record was quickly broken by the next film on this list, Quỷ Cẩu.
Quỷ Cẩu (Crimson Snout, 2023) | Watch Quỷ Cẩu here.
Quỷ Cẩu revolves around a family running a dog meat vendor. One day, the father of the house unfortunately passed away in an accident while delivering dog meat. This leads to the eldest son, Nam, who lives apart from the family and doesn’t partake in the family business, to return home to attend his father’s funeral. After reuniting with his family, Nam starts having nightmares about his whole family being killed, and soon, the family starts experiencing disturbing, sinister occurrences.
The story draws from the northern Vietnamese urban legend of “chó đội nón mê” (The Dog in the Straw Hat), an ominous dog-like specter that can stand on two legs, wears a straw hat and holds a stick to support its walking. Its appearance is considered a bad omen, signaling misfortune for those who see it. Similar to the previously mentioned film, Quỷ Cẩu also weaves cultural elements into its narrative, but what sets it apart is its decision to reinterpret the urban legend within a contemporary context by addressing the ongoing issue of dog meat consumption in Vietnamese society.
Quỷ Cẩu has a monstrous dog creature as the ghost figure. Even though the reception for it was mixed due to mediocre CGI that made the creature more goofy than frightening, it reveals how the filmmakers attempted to innovate rather than follow the conventional paths of older horror films. Thanks to its creative storytelling and contemporary themes, it quickly joined the small ranks of Vietnamese films that grossed over VND100 billion — a new high in the Vietnamese horror genre.
Conclusion
Vietnamese horror cinema has come a long way. From a period of learning from foreign films, the genre has carved out its own identity. The 2020s saw many sanguine signs in this genre, as we got to see filmmakers experiment with innovative storytelling methods that not only aim to scare audiences but also deliver the stories in a distinctly Vietnamese way.
By observing how these big-ticketed films put effort into creating high-quality works, I believe that they can lay a strong foundation for the future of Vietnamese horror. While there may be setbacks and mistakes along the way, future filmmakers will learn from them, improving the genre as they go along.
