Movie Review: 'Detention'

Detention is a Taiwanese horror movie that uses the tools of the genre to tell a story of Taiwanese history and the vile threat of authoritarian dictatorship. Directed by John Hsu, Detention is based on a video game, of the same title, from Red Candle Games that was released in 2017. Both the game and the movie make use of the aesthetics of horror to tell a deeper and richer story in a clever package.

Detention stars Tseng Ching Hua as Wei, a student at a Taiwanese High School in 1962. Wei is among a group of students who are participating in a secret book club led by two teachers, Mr Chang (Fu Ming Po) and Miss Yin (Cecilia Choi). The book club is kept secret in a storage closet on a mostly deserted end of the school. Why is this book club kept out of sight? Because the group is studying from banned books.

In 1962 Taiwan was in the midst of what has historically come to be known as ‘White Terror,’ a period of Martial Law that lasted more than 38 years. Only Syria has had a longer period of Martial Law in world history. During this time, reading or possessing banned books was an offense potentially punishable by death. When another teacher, sympathetic to the cause but not part of the book club, is arrested and taken away with a bag over his head, we learn that all of the teachers in the school are now being investigated by the headmaster, Inspector Bai (Hung Chang Chu).

To protect the book club and the teachers, the books need to be smuggled out of the school and Wei is among several book club members who volunteer for this dangerous mission. However, as Wei is leaving he literally bumps into another student, Fang Ray Shin (Gingle Wang) who sees one of the books and knows what it is. Fang happens to be the same girl that Wei has a crush on but she happens to be infatuated with Mr Chang. The fate of all three of these people, Wei, Fang and Mr Chang are part of a precarious balancing act at the heart of Detention.

That is just a thumbnail sketch of what is at play in Detention. Director John Hsu brilliantly uses the tools and tropes of horror to get at the heart of what it is like to live under martial law, to have your life constantly under threat just because you wish to be free of the shackles of dictatorship. The metaphor of horror movie monsters as stand ins for the evil of functionaries under a dictatorship is both clever and quite scary.

In the game Detention, the entities, in English, are called Lingered. This label, in Taiwan, covers a wide spectrum of supernatural threats, ghosts, demons, goblins, devils and so on. The Chinese word for this is Wangliang and is more specifically applied to Demons. Regardless of the terminology the frightening creatures of Detention are a little rubbery and low budget. One is a bit of CGI overload, but the rest of Detention is so entertaining and involving that the special effects are more than made up for.

The production design and score of Detention are top notch. The High School setting is a maze of endless corridors with ominous writing on the walls and characters popping up in the distance leading you down another oppressively dark hallway to another degraded, crumbling school room filled with new potential horrors. Chih Cheng Wang is the production designer on Detention and that production design along with John Hsu's direction and the incredible score by Luming Lu all coalesce brilliantly into a horror experience.

Detention is a movie of smart ideas and a horror atmosphere. The combination of the complex emotions and an oppressive, all consuming horror atmosphere are the strengths of Detention and Director John Hsu makes smart choices throughout. You do have to pay close attention, Detention moves around in time and that can get confusing but it also adds an element of urgency to every shift in visual style and each detail of the story being revealed. If you aren’t paying attention you might find yourself hopelessly lost and annoyed.

Detention was completed in 2019 in Taiwan but it is arriving for release in America as of October 8th via the distribution company Dekanalog. For more information on how you can see Detention, go to Dekanalog.com. Detention is in limited release for now but will be expanding to new locations over the next several weeks and will eventually be on home video. It’s one to keep an eye out for.