Reviewed by Alicia Glass
So our Rookie (Gingle Wang) hasn’t been dead terribly long as other ghosts would describe it, and isn’t terribly familiar with the big business that the haunting and urban legend celebrity ghosts perpetuate. When the offerings at a ghosts grave or shrine begin tapering off and especially if they stop, for any reason or none at all, the ghost in question has 30 days to either obtain an official haunting license, or glitch out of existence, basically forever. And for some reason, our Rookie isn’t ready to do that just yet.
The rivalry between the two main celebrities of our ghostly world, Catherine (Sandrine Pinna) and her haunted hotel versus Jessica (Eleven Yao) and her horde of fakes, is just like the smiling poison you’ll see between live celebs on any reality TV show today. Catherine has her tried and true methods that work most of the time, while Jessica seems intent on trying out a bunch of new methods to take her haunting mythos worldwide, though neither of our lady poltergeists are impressing the Chairghost (Di-yang Huang) terribly much at the moment. And our Rookie is trying rather desperately to follow in either of their footsteps, inevitably resulting in hilarious if not pathetic shenanigans.
Like any rookie out hunting a job, our Rookie attends a ghostly seminar and performs miserably, but she manages to meet Catherine’s self-proclaimed manager Makoto (Chen Bolin), and get taken back to the hotel for some professional haunting lessons from the legend herself. Spectral hijinks ensue, as Catherine and Makoto try so very hard to find a talent, a haunting niche, something that can give our Rookie recognition in the ghost world so she doesn’t go poof forever!
The problem is, is that our Rookie just doesn’t seem to be good at, well, anything. Like any ghost she actually has unfinished business and that’s why she’s still stuck on this earthly plane, but the how and why of her death, and the very real rage and sorrow she still feels because of it, is something we the living can actually all relate to as well. As she dutifully dons schoolgirl garb and Jack Skellington makeup to repeat her chosen phrase, “I hate this world!”, our Rookie is building her own urban legend to rival even Catherine and Jessica, but even in this she feels herself a fraud. Makoto and the others helped her basically put this whole thing together, and while it might save her spectral butt from glitching out, it doesn’t address her personal grievances, which is kinda the whole point of ghosts.
The leading ghosts are about to compete in a ghost-off for the Golden Ghost Awards, its all being dead-broadcast amongst the dead talents society and the competition is totally fierce, yo! But even as she gamely tries to continue the urban legend she began with help, our Rookie finds herself realizing that she doesn’t have to be declared special or hugely popular, to deserve to continue to exist. No, her death wasn’t fair at all, and to make our Rookie continue to struggle for acceptance, recognition, to be seen in the afterlife, isn’t fair at all either. No wonder that even in the beginning, our Rookie had decided to use, “I hate this world!” as her catchphrase.
Full of heart and sympathy for the struggles of recognition that both the living and the dead can totally understand, Dead Talents Society boasts plenty of jump scares and ghostly gore, but from an adorably jaded behind-the-scenes point of view!