Thailand’s most popular horror franchise is back with its third installment, Death Whisperer 3. The film unfolds in 1978 and revolves around the same family, but this time the Black Spirit targets Yee. Before the scare is introduced, we get to witness the family having a meal together. Yak planned on enlisting in the army once again. He was worried about his family, but his brothers, Yos and Yod, promised to take good care of his parents. Yad was heavily pregnant, and she decided to spend some time before childbirth with her family. Since it was sugar season, her husband was busy looking after the sugarcane farm. Her parents were glad to have her, and they were eager for the new member to join the family. Yee had recently lost her last baby tooth, and her brother had flung it onto the roof. Late at night, a monstrous-looking hand grabbed the tooth and swiftly left. Just like Chauy had stolen Yam’s tooth in Death Whisperer 1 to make Yam the new host of the Black Spirit, there was someone else who possibly wanted to perform the same ritual. Who was it? And why did they want to bring back the Black Spirit? Let’s get into the details.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Yak and his brothers drive to Bongsanodbiang?
Soon after Yee’s tooth was stolen, she was targeted by an evil spirit inside her school. Yak and his brothers had heard her scream, and they rushed into the school premises to find her. Yak saw the spirit choke his sister, and he begged it to let her go. As soon as the spirit started chanting, the brothers felt powerless; they couldn’t move, and gradually they became unconscious. By the time they woke up, Yee was gone. To find Yee, the brothers, Yak, Yos, and Yod, and their sister, Yad, came together to communicate with Yam’s spirit. When they asked Yam where the spirit had taken Yee, she responded with the help of the spirit board that Yee had been taken to Bongsanodbiang.
As soon as they lost focus on Yam, an evil spirit entered the room and interrupted their interaction with Yam. Yak was transported to a cave inside a forest, where he saw an old woman. The woman had immense magical power; he witnessed her kill a handful of Japanese soldiers without even raising a finger. She instructed Yak to follow her if he wanted to find his sister. Yak attempted to strike, but her chants were extremely powerful, and he couldn’t even raise his hands. Soon, Yak was transported back to his reality, and he figured that he had to travel to Bongsanodbiang to find his little sister. As usual, Sarge joins Yak on his deadly mission, while Yos and Yod are asked to look after their parents and Yad. But as soon as Yak reached the destination, he discovered that Yos and Yod had secretly come along with him upon the instruction of their father. From water sirens to forest spirits and shape-shifting demons, the brothers and Sarge had to face it all. Meanwhile, when Yee regained consciousness, she discovered she was in a cave. She ran for her life and ended up getting lost in the forest. The shape-shifting ghost attempted to trick her, and she didn’t know what to trust anymore. She suddenly came across the old woman Yak had seen during the ritual, and she dragged Yee into a dark cave.
What was the story behind the Black Spirit?
Yak, his brothers, and Sarge stumbled upon villagers, Yakhin and Kongmu, who narrated the reason why Bongsanodbiang was inhabited by the spirits of the dead. At the very beginning of the film, we witnessed a young Burmese woman attempt to cross a river during 1825, and British imperial troops shot her infant. The woman was furious; she cursed the goddess she worshipped, because she’d failed to protect her, and in her fury, she burned down the shrine. The woman stood inside the burning temple, and that was perhaps how the Black Spirit was born. Her evil presence only brought destruction, so in 1896, Sayador, a pilgrim monk, sealed the evil spirit in a coffin, and he strictly forbade the locals from entering the forest. He’d even drawn paintings inside the cave where the coffin was kept to prevent people from releasing the spirit. But an old shaman eventually released her spirit in 1942, during the Pacific War. After the Japanese soldiers invaded Thailand, they looted and raided villages and forced the locals to build the infamous Death Railway. Frustrated with the atrocity, Mawae, the local shaman, decided to unleash the Black Spirit, aka Dà Yǒu. They were already living in hell, so she figured they might as well use the spirit to their advantage to take down the Japanese soldiers. But as soon as the evil spirit was summoned and released, the villagers who’d participated in the ritual died a brutal death. Only Mawae survived, and it was believed that her life was nothing short of a nightmare. Dà Yǒu probably spared her because she was the one who’d convinced the rest of the villagers to reawaken her spirit, and she too possessed some darkness within her.
Why did Mawae want to bring back the spirit?
During Death Whisperer 3’s ending, when Yak finally found his brothers, Yad and Yee, inside a cave, Mawae revealed herself. This was the same cave where Dà Yǒu was trapped in a stone coffin, and the fact they were all brought to the same place suggested that a ritual was about to take place. Just as Yak was about to leave the cave with his brothers and sisters, evil spirits possessed Yee, Yos, and Yod, and they knocked Yak unconscious. When he woke up, he discovered that his arms and legs were bound. Mawae walked up to him, stabbed him in the abdomen, and kept the dagger pierced in his body. Yak couldn’t figure out why the old shaman wanted to awaken the evil spirit even after it had killed several villagers. Mawae responded that as long as humans existed, there would always be wars, and she was grateful to Dà Yǒu for giving her a chance to live forever, even if it came at the cost of the lives of other people. Mawae believed that it was her duty to protect the land of her ancestors, and she didn’t mind having to get rid of humans altogether to perform her duty. Mawae targeted Yak and his family because Dà Yǒu despised two things: war and love. War that took away her infant, and love that she was denied. Since Yak and his family loved one another deeply, Mawae knew Dà Yǒu would want to make them suffer; that was her way of seeking revenge on humanity. When Yak explained that he’d already sent her to hell (in Death Whisperer 2), Mawae clarified that she had only gone into slumber, and she could be brought back if Mawae succeeded in providing her a ‘worthy host.’ She had stolen Yee’s tooth because she planned on turning her into a host. Without the Black Spirit, Mawae and the rest of the evil spirits likely stood a chance of disintegrating with time. But if they provided Dà Yǒu with a host, they could dwell on the land of their ancestors forever.
Mawae dropped the tooth into a vessel, and she pulled out the dagger from Yak’s abdomen and allowed the blood to flow into the vessel (to reawaken Dà Yǒu, the blood of her defeater had to be added to the mix). Mawae declared that the offering was ready, and all she was left to do was add an untainted soul. She approached Yad and attempted to carve the baby out from her belly. She exclaimed that if the ritual was completed, she, along with the other dark spirits who haunted the forest, would live forever. The blood and the tooth opened the gates of hell, and just as Mawae was about to slit Yad’s belly, Sarge shot her. The evil spirits attacked Sarge and Yad; meanwhile, Yakhin cut the ropes loose and released Yak. As it turned out, Sarge had used mercury-coated bullets that instantly destroyed the evil spirits. He’d discovered that the sacred bells they’d found in the forest were holy, and they had mercury sealed inside them. Yak figured that if he had to destroy Dà Yǒu, he would have to put mercury in her forehead just like Sayador did years back. Amidst all the chaos, Yad’s water broke, and she gave birth to a baby boy inside the cave.
Did Yak vanquish Dà Yǒu?
Mawae turned into dust after she was shot, and the dust fell into the pit that was meant to open the gates of hell. Presumably, Mawae offered herself up to reawaken Dà Yǒu, and the ritual worked. Dà Yǒu immediately killed Sarge after Yad gave birth. Funnily enough, Yak asked with frustration how many times he would have to kill her (I guess as many times as the franchise would want)! Dà Yǒu’s plan was to take Yee as her new host and devour the rest. When Yak and his brothers tried to stop her, she once again used chants to control them. Yakhin and Kongmu, who had been ‘killed’ when the evil spirits started attacking, shockingly reappeared. The ending of Death Whisperer 3 revealed that Yakhin and Kongmu were among the many villagers Dà Yǒu had killed after the shaman performed the ritual to release. They too wanted to seek revenge on the evil spirit, and since Dà Yǒu had already killed them (years ago), they figured the spirit couldn’t harm them anymore. But Dà Yǒu wasn’t as easy to destroy. She used chants to destroy Kongmu’s spirit, and Yakhin realized that they could only destroy evil with something holy. She believed that the bodily fluids released before Yud gave birth were holy, since they had the ‘power of life.’ Yak grabbed hold of the dagger that was coated with the fluid and used it to stab Dà Yǒu.
The evil spirit was wounded, and in the end, Yak placed the sacred bell on her forehead and used a gun to release the mercury that was sealed inside. As soon as the mercury was released, Dà Yǒu screamed in agony. Yakhin instructed Yak to send Dà Yǒu back to hell before the gates closed. So, Yak held on to his dagger and pounced on Dà Yǒu, stabbing her once again in the neck. They fell into the pit, where hell and the mortal world briefly came together. The evil spirit tried to hold on to Yak, but he managed to overpower it and swim away from hell. Yak finally swam up to the surface, and while his siblings were relieved to see him alive, they were also devastated, because they figured this time Sarge wouldn’t make it. He was bleeding profusely, and by then even Sarge had come to accept that he only had a brief minute with his loved ones. He asked Yak to tell his daughter, Nampetch, that he never really got the chance to tell her how deeply he loved her, and he requested Yak to look after her. Sarge died that night in the cave, and the family mourned his loss together. The joy of welcoming a new life was soon overcome by the sadness of bidding farewell to a dear friend.
What does the mid-credit scene suggest?
During the mid-credit scene, we witness Nampetch stand before her father’s picture with teary eyes and trembling lips. The loss had deeply affected her, and it also signals that Nampetch will be an important character in the spin-off film that the franchise has already planned for the future. We will definitely get to know her closely and also find out more about Sarge and the relationship he shared with his daughter. Considering Sarge had entrusted Yak to look after her, the two worlds will definitely come together, and the chances of a romantic possibility also seem probable. So, will Dà Yǒu reappear? At this point, saying no doesn’t really make sense. Also, I think that a child born in such an evil place might carry some darkness. An evil spirit had licked Yad’s belly when she was pregnant, a reason good and dark enough for the franchise to use it to their advantage!
