I love it when I can see that pouty bloke out of Game of Thrones strap on some sandals, oil-wrestle some muscly black guys, maybe ride a horse topless, have another fight this time with swords, have back-lit sex with a pert lass in a see-through nightie, and then get blown to kingdom come by a histrionic Italian mountain. I must have a sixth sense about these things because exactly that movie was playing at the mall last weekend.
Up front at the ticket counter a dad was whisper-shouting at his kids to act shorter and younger so they could share a seat. With three pre-teens to entertain, you can’t blame him for trying to save a few bucks. While he wheedled for a discount and dithered over row numbers, his Swensen’s-smeared male progeny viciously assaulted a life-size cardboard Robocop with their squeaker sandals. His little princess meanwhile stood akimbo in a Hello Kitty confirmation tutu and caterwauled at her brothers from three feet away, almost loud enough to drown out the noise of my grinding teeth. Certainly the dead were stirring. Passing shoppers smiled and laughed at those adorable tykes. I really wanted to pinch ‘em, which I know is probably wrong, and would have no doubt made things louder. But still. Instead I struggled to muster a half-arsed ‘benign indulgence’ face and dragged my X-ray death-stare from the cavorting demon spawn to the cashier’s touchscreen to see what heartwarming, family-friendly visual feast pops had planned.
Call me old-fashioned, but if I’m the wife and by some miracle the husband says: ‘Oh darling, let me take the kids off your hands this afternoon – we’ll go catch a nice movie to give you a bit of well-deserved ‘me’ time,’ I’m thinking they’ll be off to see some enchanted deer babies chatting with anthropomorphic insects or a charming penguin who can breakdance. At a pinch maybe a band of barely closeted single menfolk from mythical, culturally diverse backgrounds traipsing all over New Zealand looking for a fabulous ring. But the picture this parent had picked for his rambunctious offspring was a ghosty Thai terrorfest, complete with long wet hair over gouged eyesockets, institutional hallways with sickly flickering fluoros that reveal sphincter-twangling twin sister ghouls, lifts that are empty, empty, now not empty, empty, and holy fuck, don’t look up but that clickety click above your head is someone’s undead auntie scuttling crab-style across the ceiling.
This film looked particularly inappropriate for the under-tens because most of the characters, alive or beyond the grave, seemed all under ten. Except for the cackling spectre of a coal-eyed, gore-spewing 20-something in a blood-stabbed nightie. Oh, and the ever popular Arp, which is a pretty floating head with pulsing heart and entrails dangling by a skinless windpipe, and which everybody knows is a alive and well and materialising with pant-wetting frequency all over the Bodes. Even the vile little poppets gambolling next to me didn’t deserve a lifetime of the lights on after lights out. Casper it wasn’t.
At home, Western wraiths keep pretty much to themselves. And unless we’re on a reality show or gothic, we generally avoid haunted houses and graveyards, especially at night. But here the supernatural, malignant and benign is, well, super natural. CharmingVille is spook city and everyone’s a believer.
There are the seven-day send-offs, hundred-day reminders and yearly revisitations. There are those meddlesome ghost toddlers who turn the taps on or bang the doors if you don’t bribe them with candy. No change there then. Just across the river and a tombstone’s throw from my in-laws, the neighbourhood phantom occasionally strolls past the pagoda and even buys a pastry. After he pays the vendor discovers the notes are fake. How anyone knows he is a ghost is beyond me, because apparently he looks like every other half-pissed bloke staggering home from the Bayon big screen. But anyway.
Back at our connubial HQ the dead are not only alive and well, they have expensive taste. One afternoon on my way home I met Hubster coming down the stairs. He had one of our good wedding platters, a bag of perfect mangos, a whole roast chicken and a bottle of chilled Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2012. He said it was for a haunted tree. Sure buddy. Where I’m from I’d give you 10 points for ingenuity but only after I’d run over your X-Box, keyed your car, and set everything else you own alight on the front lawn. But I’ve been here long enough to know that it really was for the massive banyan at the end of our street. I took back the plate and exchanged the wine for a can of root beer we got free from Sokimex. When in Rome.
