Ghostly white briefs of Hor Taew Taek come back to haunt us

Poj Arnon mixes the gay-icon vampires and shirtless werewolves of the Twilight franchise with Gothic horror in Hor Taew Taek Waek Chi-Mi (หอแต๋วแตก แหกชิมิ), the third installment of his transvestite ghost-comedy franchise.

Here, the cross-dressing owners of a college dormitory visit a fraternity house.

Poj's production faced controversy in November when the movie poster was censored by the Culture Ministry, which had determined that the shirtless vampire was showing too much skin wearing just a pair of white bikini briefs.

The solution was to put some trousers on the bare-chested young man, while the hefty comedians in revealing women's bathing suits went unchanged. Later versions of the poster have the guys looking positively dowdy, in dark-colored high-collared Victorian-style blouses.

Meanwhile, there's a trailer at YouTube (embedded below), and it shows plenty of skin, though it's mainly the protruding belly of rotund little funnyman Kohtee Aramboy.

The film's original title, Hor Taew Taek Haek Chi-Mi was also deemed inappropriate by MiniCult, so the vulgar and violent "haek" (to rip apart) became the more gentle and polite "waek" (to pull apart).

Whatever. Apparently, even fluent Thai speakers have trouble translating the film's title.

Further, the cultural watchdogs were wringing their hands over the use of the colloquial Thai expression "chi-mi", but I guess they relented on that.

Also starring Jaturong "Mokjok" Ornnorm, Ekachai Srivichai and Yingsak Jonglertjessadawong, the movie opens tomorrow.