SHUTTER And ALONE Co-Director Banjong Pisanthanakun Launches Horror Comedy PEE MAK PHRAKANONG

Thailand's Banjong Pisanthanakun burst on to the international horror scene in 2004 as the co-director of chilling horror picture Shutter, later subjected to a greatly inferior US remake. Pisanthanakun would team up with his Shutter co-director again for 2007 effort Alone but fans have been waiting ever since for a return to feature length horror.

It's not that he hasn't been busy ... Pisanthanakun turned in stellar solo efforts in the short film horror anthologies Phobia and Phobia 2, directed hugely successful romantic comedy Hello Stranger in 2010 and contributed the hysterical N Is For Nuptials segment to this year's international horror anthology The ABCs Of Death. But a feature in the genre that made him famous? That hasn't happened for five years now.

So take heart, fans of Asian horror with word that Pisanthanakun is back! Production began in late October on new horror comedy Pee Mak Phrakanong. Though the film has not yet settled on an English title for the international market we are told that it is a sort of gender inversion of the Nang Nak legend. Mario Maurer stars along with the four young men who made Pisanthanakun's entries in the Phobia series such immediate favorites. The Phobia quartet will not be reprising their characters from those films as this is a period set effort but their presence is an immediate indication of what direction Pisanthanakun is taking this.