Rigor Mortis is a 2013 Hong Kong horror-action film directed by Juno Mak and produced by Takashi Shimizu. The film is a tribute to the Mr. Vampire film series, though with a significantly less comedic tone. It also notably stars many of the former cast of that film series.
Formerly successful actor Chin Sui-ho (played by the real life actor) moves into a dilapidated apartment complex to commit suicide after his wife leaves him. However, when he attempts to hang himself, his body ends up becoming possessed by the vengeful spirits of twin women. The resident retired vampire hunter, Yau (Anthony Chang) comes to his rescue, casting the spirits out. Unfortunately, the possession proves to be just the beginning as the untimely death of one of the tenants brings with it an even greater supernatural threat.
This film provides examples of:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: The twins are capable of contorting their limbs in some pretty disturbing ways.
- Adam Westing: As far as we're aware, the real Chin Sui-ho did not fight actual supernatural forces or was suicidal. Granted, his fights with Tung and the twins were revealed to be part of a Dying Dream, but the real life actor is also still alive.
- Albinos Are Freaks: Subverted with Pak. Despite him drawing some unnerving pictures of the twins, he's more a case of Children Are Innocent.
- And You Were There: All of the characters in the movie were people Chin passed by on his way to his room to commit suicide. However, there are marked differences between their "dream" and real versions.
- Anti-Villain: Auntie Meiyi was a genuinely kind old lady, but the sudden death of her husband Uncle Tung causes her to go to some objectionable extremes to resurrect him, eventually deciding to sacrifice a child.
- An Arm and a Leg: Yau has to do Blood Magic to activate a magical compass while Chin fights Tung, and not only is it fueled by blood, the device slowly and painfully twists his arm off.
- Broken Bird: Yang Feng is clearly mentally unwell after the trauma of coming back to her apartment to find her husband stabbed to death along with the bodies of the twins. And that's not going into the fact that her husband died because he was trying to rape one of the twins.
- Chinese Vampire: Uncle Tung is resurrected as one. He's notably a rare example of one being played completely for horror. He also becomes a hell of a lot more limber after he's possessed by the twins.
- Cruel Twist Ending: The already incredibly bittersweet ending of Chin and Yau dying of their wounds after destroying Tung is completely undone by the reveal that all of the events in the movie were just Chin's Dying Dream as his body succumbed to rigor mortis after his suicide.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to the film series it's paying tribute to. This is probably the least campy movie about hopping corpses you'll ever see. The tone is dour throughout, the supernatural threats are treated completely seriously, and the kills are pretty graphic.
- Dead All Along: Chin himself. Hints are scattered through the movie.
- Soon after he’s rescued, everyone shrugs it off as soon as Yau dismisses them, and they watch the showdown in his apartment so quietly that you could hear a pin drop. Even considering Yau’s a vampire hunter who just dealt with a possession, not one person thinks to call an ambulance, or even ask if the clearly-suicidal new neighbor is okay. He’s also eating and talking without a hint of pain, when he should have gotten some nasty throat damage from an attempted hanging. At the very end of the movie, it turns out the neighbors DID find his body after he hanged himself successfully. They are realistically more chaotic and upset, an ambulance gets there quickly, and the scene fast-tracks Chin through the hospital… right up to the morgue.
- Yau spots the marker drawings that his son made on him, and chides him for not letting go of the past. Chin’s constantly having flashbacks of his son as a child, but in the morgue where Chin was taken after his suicide actually happened, he’s revealed as an ADULT and comes in to identify his body.
- When Yang eats the spirit-offerings from Uncle Yin and gets discovered by Chin, she’s frightened of him and runs off, apologizing for “eating YOUR food.” This can be missed as a general apology to the spirits, especially since Yang’s called “crazy” by the other neighbors, but she DOES also see spirits, and the neighbors would have left Chin himself the offerings after they found his body.
- Driven to Suicide: Chin attempts to hang himself at the very start of the movie. In the real world, he actually succeeded. Chin's Dying Dream incidentally concludes with Meiyi slitting her throat to be with Tung after Tung is destroyed.
- Dying Dream: The main plot is started when a washed-up actor tries to hang himself after his wife leaves him and takes their son. He actually succeeded, and the whole movie is his dream.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Gau was planning to have Tung's corpse possessed by the twins in a ritual to extend his own life, only to realize too late the sheer evil he unwittingly unleashed.
- Eye Scream: As part of the resurrection ritual, one of Tung's eyelids is sewn shut.
- Facial Horror: The gruesome injuries Tung sustained on his head that led to his death are plain to see when he finally appears without his mask, namely the jagged Glasgow Grin stretching across the left side of his face that shows just how utterly wrecked his jaw got.
- Genre Savvy AND Wrong Genre Savvy: Uncle Yin asks Gau about where Tung’s been soon after finding one of Tung’s lost teeth on the stairs, since he’s known about Gau dabbling in necromancy since Gau was a kid. He doesn’t realize Meiyi is in on Tung’s disappearance, though, and she desperately bashes his face in so the resurrection can go as planned.
- Genre Shift: The ending shifts the movie from a supernatural horror film to a Wuxia martial arts movie that just happens to feature a Chinese Vampire.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Tung's resurrection is revealed to have been orchestrated by Gau in his bid to extend his own life. However, Gau is mortally wounded by Tung and realizes that his bid for immortality has unleashed something incredibly dangerous, keeping Gau from really becoming any sort of antagonist.
- Hope Spot: The scenes where Yang and Pak move in with Chin and he slowly tries to coax Yang out of her trauma are quite sweet. Unfortunately, Pak gets sacrificed to Tung.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Tung ends up impaling Chin with a rod during their first confrontation. Unlike most examples, Chin is able to recover from it long enough to face Tung a second time, thanks to Yau's timely assistance.
- Invisible to Normals: The only ones who can see the twins are Yau, Gau and Pak. This becomes a problem when Yang unknowingly releases them from the cabinet they were sealed in, and when Chin is unable to detect them after downing Tung, allowing the twins to possess Tung's body.
- That last part may have happened because she can SEE spirits, but her mental state means she can’t distinguish them very well from the living.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: During his battle with the possessed Chin, Yau drags Chin up to a mirror, revealing the twin possessing his body.
- Mundane Utility: How do you work with a surplus of glutinous rice, now that you have no vampires to use it on? In Yau's case, it's to open up a restaurant specializing in glutinous rice dishes.
- Prehensile Hair: The twin women wrap their hair around their opponents during the fights, though it's more as a form of ensnarement and later possession.
- Rape as Backstory: Yang's husband raped one of the twins during a tutoring session, driving the other twin to stab him to death to protect her sister. However, she also ended up getting stabbed during the scuffle, killing her. The surviving twin hung herself shortly after, to join her sister.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Yang attempts this on Tung after finding out that he killed her son. However, Tung overpowers and kills her.
- Retired Badass: Yau is a former vampire hunter who quit and took up running a restaurant after the demand for his services thinned out. He can still pull of some incredible acrobatic feats when he has to however.
- Running on All Fours: The twins move like this. Tung gets in on it after they possess him.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Yau and Gau manage to seal away the twins in a cabinet in Chin's room. Unfortunately, Yang opens it, believing Pak to be in there.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: The twin women.
- Supreme Chef: In Chin's opinion, Yau's gluttonous rice is the best he's ever had.
- Tainted Veins: The twins, though what's notable is that they can also spread the roots outward as a kind of extension of their prehensile hair.
- Together in Death: How the twins ended up in their state. One of them was killed saving the other from a rape, and the surviving twin hung herself because she couldn't bear to be apart from her. After Tung is destroyed, Meiyi kills herself to join her husband as well.
- Trailers Always Lie: The trailers make it look like a surreal action movie that just happens to feature the characters fighting against supernatural threats. In reality, most of the movie is a slow-burn traditional horror movie with brief bursts of action. There are only three real fight scenes in the entire movie.
- Would Hurt a Child: Meiyi sacrifices Pak to Tung to hasten Tung's awakening.
