Imagine you’ve just settled into a nice, peaceful evening of horror, only to have it interrupted by a movie that does everything wrong, yet somehow manages to keep you watching. Always Be With You (also known as Naalu Aaru Anju) is like a family reunion gone horribly, horribly wrong—except instead of embarrassing uncles telling bad jokes, you’re stuck with vengeful ghosts, existential crises, and an eerie number of misunderstandings about what exactly constitutes a “ghost story.”
Directed by Herman Yau, this film is the twentieth and final installment in the Troublesome Night series, so the filmmakers must have figured, “Why not go out with a bang?” Unfortunately, they decided to go out with a confused thudinstead. With its incredibly overstuffed plot, cryptic character motivations, and a twist that’s so convoluted even the ghosts seem lost, Always Be With You is a supernatural horror film that might leave you wondering if it’s haunted by bad writing and confused direction.
Plot: A Family-sized Ghost Story—With Extra Sighs
The story follows David (Louis Koo), a taxi driver with lung cancer who accidentally runs over Patrick, a vacation home owner. But wait—before we dive into this supernatural saga of bad decisions and worse timing, let’s pause to appreciate the sheer accident of it all. The film starts with a freak car crash and a series of unfortunate events involving a ghostly love triangle, a string of suicides, and a collection of half-baked subplots, all wrapped in the soft glow of soothing confusion.
David, the taxi-driving cancer patient, finds himself entangled in a web of hauntings, murders, and a disturbingly poor understanding of how to treat grief. The film throws him into a haunted vacation house with a ghost named Siu-hung, an ex-fiancée (now apparently a permanent fixture in David’s afterlife), and a slew of characters who couldn’t find an actual plot if it was carved into their graves.
At this point, it’s clear: Always Be With You is less about the supernatural and more about piling one messy subplot on top of another like a clumsy Jenga tower. While the ghosts float around, waiting for their big dramatic reveal, we’re stuck dealing with an emotional love triangle that feels as unnecessary as it is tedious. Throw in a few dead bodies, a meth lab, and a bunch of convoluted flashbacks, and voilà—Always Be With You is your average ghost film, if you’re into ghosts that are as cryptic as a Yelp review written in another language.
Characters: Ghosts and Humans Are All Just Incredibly Confused
The character lineup of Always Be With You is a veritable Who’s Who of Why Do I Care? The most notable face is Louis Koo, playing David. He’s your stereotypical anti-hero: a man with cancer, a crumbling past, and a knack for making terrible decisions in a plot where even the ghosts seem to question his existence. Then there’s his wife, Si (Charmaine Sheh), who’s presumably the “long-suffering spouse” archetype, though she spends most of her time either confused or mildly frightened. Honestly, it’s a toss-up whether she’s more scared of the ghostly apparitions or her husband’s questionable life choices.
And let’s not forget about the ghosts. Siu-hung (Ava Yu), who is apparently dead and haunting our poor heroes, has all the personality of a sheet of paper that accidentally fell into a puddle of rain. She’s the kind of ghost who doesn’t so much haunt as she does wander around looking like she’s lost, probably trying to figure out how her life led her to this point. If you’re a fan of spectral figures who don’t do much except be vaguely tragic, you’re in for a treat.
Horror: More “Oh No” Than “Oh God!”
If you’re expecting bone-chilling terror or a sequence that’ll keep you up at night, you’re in for a disappointment. The horror in Always Be With You is more about jumping from one narrative loop to another than about actual scares. Ghosts materialize and disappear at will, which makes it hard for us, the viewers, to care when they do. The film’s version of a “scary moment” is like a child wearing a Halloween mask for the first time—awkward, unconvincing, and at times, laughable.
The soundtrack doesn’t help, either. You know you’re in trouble when the haunting music sounds more like someone trying to play a piano while riding a rollercoaster. At times, you’ll find yourself giggling instead of gasping, but then again, if you’re still watching at that point, you’re either a glutton for punishment or a sadist enjoying the ghostly mess that is unfolding on screen.
Cinematography: Where Ghosts and Shadows Go to Die
Let’s talk about the cinematography—or rather, the lack thereof. If there’s one thing Always Be With You proves, it’s that you can make a horror film look spooky without making it actually feel spooky. The film relies on gloomy, dimly lit sets that look like they were borrowed from a school production of The Haunted Mansion—a bit too obvious, a bit too cheap. The shots of the haunted vacation house and the tragic flashbacks are so overly filtered, it’s as though the director and the cinematographer were trying to conceal the true horror: the film itself.
There’s nothing visually arresting in this movie, nothing that’ll make your jaw drop. It’s almost as if they took all the scariest scenes and then doused them in a bucket of meh.
Conclusion: Always Be With You—For When You’ve Run Out of Better Choices
In conclusion, Always Be With You is the kind of film you watch when you’ve decided to forgo good decisions, logic, and any semblance of taste. It’s like that awkward family dinner where everyone talks about their problems but no one actually wants to listen. The ghosts, the narrative, and the characters all feel like they’ve been thrown together randomly in the hopes that something will stick. The plot doesn’t make sense, the characters are hard to care about, and the scares are about as scary as an old sock under the couch.
But hey, if you’re looking for a movie where everything is underwhelming but you still feel compelled to see it through to the end, Always Be With You might be your cup of ghostly tea. Just don’t expect it to keep you up at night—unless it’s the sound of your own disappointed sighs.
Verdict: 1.5 out of 5 stars—because even the ghosts probably wanted to haunt a different film.
