During the Chinese Seventh Month, the gates of hell open and spirits are let loose upon an unsuspecting world. Hailing from a small village in the Philippines, 18-year-old Rosa Dimaano arrives in Singapore on the first day of the Seventh Month to work as a domestic maid. She urgently needs money to save her ill brother back home. Her employers, the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Teo, appear kindhearted. Their mentally-handicapped son Ah Soon also takes to Rosa immediately.
Between cleaning house and helping the Teos out at their Teochew opera workplace, things start going amiss. Rosa glimpses strange apparitions at night. She finds out that there was a maid two years before her called Esther. She apparently has the same good relationship with Ah Soon as she does. That is when Rosa begins to suspect things are not as they are.
As she explores around some of the shady areas of the house, she discovers the ashes of Esther, the previous maid hidden in a jar and through a ghostly vision that Esther’s spirit shows her realizes that Esther was playing with Ah Soon in his room two years ago on that same day of the Ghost Festival when he suddenly, though unintentionally, molested her on the bed. When the parents witnessed this, they feared that Esther might sue the family so Mr. Teo cowardly beat her to the ground and poured oil all over her before setting her on fire.
Frightened by the vision, Rosa tries to escape when she is suddenly confronted by Ah Soon. She quickly finds out that Ah Soon is also a ghost himself when she tries to stab him only to realize that the man would not show a scar or any visible wound. In the past, Ah Soon committed suicide shortly after the death of Esther but instead of passing to the afterlife, he chose to return to the house of the Teo to find the spirit of Esther, whom he was in love with. From behind her, Mr. Teo knocks Rosa unconscious and ties her up. When Rosa awakens, she is told by Mrs. Teo that the Teo family has longed believed that ghosts can also marry and their whole intention for inviting her to Singapore was to sacrifice her so that she would be wed to their dead son. But when Mr. Teo tries to hang Rosa, Ah Soon suddenly remembers the way his father brutally murdered Esther and tells him and his mother that he does not want to see any more deaths in the house.
Ah Soon accidentally pushes Mr. Teo into a worship-table, spilling and igniting oil on Mr. Teo, burning him to death. When Rosa manages to break free in the panic, Mrs. Teo picks up a knife and tries to finish what her husband had started. Rosa dashes out of the house and crosses the road just as Mrs. Teo is hit by a passing vehicle, killing her instantly. Rosa passes to the other side unharmed.
In the final sequence, Rosa is seen heading to the airport on the last day of July when the gates of hell are closing. She takes with her a pot containing Esther’s ashes as she enters the airport while the ghosts of the Teo family watches her disappear beyond the doors.
The Maid is a 2005 Singaporean horror film telling of a maid recently arriving from the Philippines. She has to acclimate herself to the customs of the Chinese Ghost Month, during which she struggles with supernatural forces. The maid is employed by a Teochew opera family, a family with many secrets, who give her a place to stay in their dilapidated shophouse.
Related posts: