Movie Review: ‘The Housemaid’

by | Feb 15, 2018 | Movie Reviews, Movies | 0 comments

Review by Caitlin Zeigler

It’s 1953 in Vietnam and Linh (Kate Nhung) is desperate to find any work she can get. She heard there was work at a French rubber plantation where she could be a housemaid. Mrs. Han (Kim Xuan) is in charge of taking care of the house and she decides to hire Linh. Captain Sebastien Laurent (Jean-Michel Richaud) is the owner, who comes home one night with a bad injury. When Mrs. Han has to leave to take care of her ailing mother, she decides to leave Linh in charge of taking care of Sebastien.

When Linh starts hearing noises and seeing spirits, the cook Mrs. Ngo (Phi Phung), tells her that the spirits are Madame Camille (Svitlana Kovalenko) and the slaves who were killed on the plantation, who are now restless. Madame Camille is Sebastien’s wife who went mad and killed their child and herself while he was away. Linh and Sebastien start to bond and get close while she’s taking care of him. They fall in love when Sebastien’s fiancée shows up and gets Linh fired.

Sebastien stands up to his fiancée to be with Linh. The restless spirits are plotting revenge that Linh is connected to. Linh can somewhat handle living with the spirits until Sebastien is killed. She realizes both the spirits and she did what they had to do. This film is pretty good. Without giving away too much, there is a twist ending that some people might catch part of, but not all of it. It is a ghost story, a romance and a story of revenge. It’s well made and has a few jump scares. One of my favorite parts was that I felt bad for someone who I didn’t know was bad and I got to see revenge come and I found out what they did, so I was a bit shocked when I found out this person wasn’t good. This horror film has its flaws, but it’s worth the watch.