This show is a horror series through and through. Dealing with evil entities and spiritual witchcraft that made no sense and would have been enjoyable had they made it fun. But the whole story was dark, brooding, almost pointless, and incomprehensible to figure out. It mixed religious beliefs like you were mixing ingredients for a cake batter and expecting us to believe the cake was going to come out looking like something edible. Instead, it was half-baked, and it fell flat. Frankly, I do know what this series was supposed to be. However, I can tell you what it is not. It is not a BL. And it is not scary. It is not mysterious or even a thriller. But it is confusing as hell (no pun intended) wasted the talents of fine actors, and offensive on two fronts. I am rarely offended by anything, but this series was offensive to gay people and to how it portrayed Catholics, and I am no great admirer of the Catholic Church.

It begins confusingly with Trin (Fiat Patchata) seemingly losing his mind and then goes missing from St. Lawerence All Boys Catholic School. About a year later, Brother Anurak (Utt Uttsada) brings in another tormented young man named Dan (Singto Prachaya) into the school. Dan has a traumatized past and is a product of a broken home. Actually, more than that, as we find out. His father was an abuser to both him and his mother. Brother Anurak has been a family friend who has tried to help Dan and his family over the years but with little success. Dan is plagued with an entity that follows him around in his dreams and is a misty black shadow that blurs his reality to the point that he cannot tell what his reality is versus what the shadow wants him to see. Initially thinking it was an evil force, he begins to sense that perhaps it is not.

Dan is a rather reserved, introspective, quiet, studious individual who does like to draw. He stays mostly to himself because of his affliction with the shadow. Dan befriends his roommate Josh (Poon Mitpakdee) and Nai (Fluke Natouch). Nai has few friends and is isolated because he was outed by his former best friend and now lives pretty much under fear of being teased/harassed. Dan befriends him and also becomes his defender against his tormentors and school bullies. Initially, Nai and Dan become close with Nai developing an unrequited love for him. Yet, he soon realizes Dan’s interest lies elsewhere and to some degree he is incapable of feeling love. Much like Dan, Nai also shoulders dark secrets and esoteric abilities. He can see dead people and senses other supernatural entities as well.

Most of the story revolves around these three trying to find out what happened to Trin and his disappearance, to find an answer to all the negative energy that exists around the school. Many years ago, there was an incident involving young people who lost their lives on the campus indirectly centering around the good intentions of Brother Anurak. He himself has a checkered past and cannot forgive himself for ending up at one time being a male prostitute. He seems destined to never be able to forgive himself and more importantly not allow for the truth to come out about the students who were massacred on the campus and who still haunt the campus.

This story gets lost in its own verbiage and becomes confusing and therefore incomprehensible. It tries to do too much with too little explanation. It decided it needed to go dark to explain itself rather than simply, honestly looking at human foibles and frailties. The reality was far uglier and scarier.

The real reasons why this story failed:

1. Cover up. Cover up. Cover up. No one wants to tell the truth about what happened on campus. If the truth was simply told, none of this would have mattered and souls could have gone on to rest a long time ago. The truth would have set everyone free. No one wants to own up to the truth.

2. Brother Anurak is afraid of the truth. He lives in fear of it. Had he been open and honest with Trin and Dan, none of this would have had to happen. His mind was so closed off from other options other than his own (perceived) religious beliefs, that he could not see what was right in front of him. He was also incapable of discerning any other alternatives than from his own religion, which then closed him off to helping others using and incorporating other methods from their own culture, background, and customs which are also vital to them.

3. The whole series treated gayness as a disease to be avoided. When Nai kissed Dan, Nai threw himself into prostration and asked for forgiveness with Dan neither acting like he liked it or disliked it. Yet, he shows up as his ‘date’ for the dance. Why would you do that knowing that you have no feelings for him romantically? I found that action to be heartless, cruel, and so condescending. Nai was so instrumental in helping Dan get back his life, yet the connection between the two is hardly relevant anymore and is almost dismissive and cavalier. The whole incident with Trin pouring his feelings out to his teacher was treated as something that was ‘wrong’ and not to be done. And Brother Anurak treated him contemptuously. In addition, the school tacitly approves of the bullying of gay students. This is an appallingly anti-gay series disguised with subtle anti-gay messages throughout.

4. Dan was obviously at some point finding sexual pleasure by being consumed by the shadow. That was obvious. This whole notion was simply glossed over but is a relevant point to perhaps why Dan decided to remain in the realm of the dead. I found that rather perverted and disgusting.

5. The astonishing neglect and maleficence of Brother Anurak not knowing that a female teacher is pregnant by a male student with both then involved in the death of another female student on campus is the height of abject administrative failure and smacks of tacit cover-up. That is complete incompetency. And when it was found out, it is merely glossed over like it never happened.

6. While I have no great love for the Catholic Church, I must take exception in how Brother Anurak decided to ‘guide’ Dan back to life. Although I dare not speak for the Church, what was presented as a solution is a complete antithesis of what is a solution to guiding Dan back to his reality. Somehow exchanging one’s life for another via suicide is not how it works and should not have been shown as an option for atonement. I took exception to that as an option. It was a total misrepresentation of asking God for forgiveness. Fighting evil with evil is simply not how it works nor should work. While I am not a practicing Catholic, I do know that if you commit suicide and you are of sound mind (which he was) your soul is condemned to hell if you believe in those precepts. There is no stopping off to help in another realm first. None of that made any sense to me. To give the impression that killing yourself will bring back someone from the dead is abhorrent. To me (irrelevant to any religious beliefs), it is morally and ethically wrong to even hint that such an option is viable. That took the lack of understanding of another religion to get out of an untenable solution rather than being more creative with a story.

7. Adding to the universality of what is wrong with Thai series is paramount in this one as well. A complete and total lack of honest, straightforward communication. No one talks openly or honestly in these series, and this is another prime example. While it is not about ‘love’ in this case, it is about honesty. Why was Brother Anurak not open and honest with both Trin and Dan as to who he was and his role in what happened in the past? Instead, he hides behind the comfort of his robe to pretend all is well while he knows these young men are suffering from something that he does not understand.

I thought the acting in this series was rather flat and repetitive. I honestly saw none of them being challenged to do anything beyond some basic acting skills, which was a waste of enormous talent especially for Singto and Fluke. This was cookie-cutter material and seemed unchallenging for them and nothing but a lot of repetitive scenes. I found the acting rather boring. The only one for me who rose a bit to the challenge was Fiat Patchata as Trin. He had to be all things. It frankly was a weird role. From being a star performer in school to being vilified. His range of emotions he had to perform was impressive. Mostly trying to conform to everyone else’s standards of normalcy until he finally could not do it anymore and frankly the bad advice and the tone-deafness of Brother Anurak only exacerbated his condition. His role was a difficult and challenging one to endure as it was so pivotal but to some degree so confusing. No one understood him or his issues.

This is a nonsensical horror series that spun its wheels around and presented an awful message. You had murder on a Catholic campus, a female teacher raping a male student, possession by evil spirts, bullying and abuse of gay students by students and faculty, students with serious mental health issues untreated, spousal and child abuse, forced abortions, suicide, and soul possessions just to identify some issues encountered in this incomprehensible mess of a story with no resolution of anything.

I did not understand this series and I did not like it. It has an anti-gay flair to it and uses Catholicism wrongly and offensively. Equally important, it was a complete waste of good acting talent.

Rating- 2 out of 5

Streaming on- Gagaoolala