Ghosts? Bed scene is scarier

For lead actress Jesseca Liu, the most difficult part of shooting local ghost flick Bring Back The Dead had nothing to do with the supernatural.

Instead, it was a "freaky" bed scene that jolted her.

At the press conference for the Lee Thean Jeen-directed horror movie yesterday, the Malaysia-born Singapore-based star told M: "When I read the (original) script that said there was a scene where a hand - it was undecided then if it was going to my husband's (played by Taiwanese actor Jacko Chiang) or a ghost's - that was going to fondle me beneath my clothing, I was quite alarmed.

"I had a lot of meetings and discussions with the director and kept asking how that was relevant to the development of the plot.

"In the end, the scene got tweaked to one where there is just kissing and hugging between me and Jacko."

She added: "Perhaps it's because I take a long time to warm up to people. That's why such an intimate scene was difficult for me.

"The director told me and Jacko to take all the time we needed and left us alone to get to know each other better before we started filming and that helped a lot."

Bring Back The Dead, an adaptation of a short story written by Wong Swee Hoon called Bringing Back The Dead (from the collection of short stories Ghost Baby And Other Eerie Tales), opens here on Jan 8.

Liu, 35, plays a woman whose seven-year-old son dies in a road accident. The grieving mother seeks the help of her former caregiver (Liu Ling Ling) to bring back his soul so he can be "by her side" at home.

Liu's character grows distant from her husband after their child's death and the bed scene happens when the couple decide to rekindle their feelings for one another.

GHOST IN HER STORE

She claimed that in real life, there is a spirit occupying her Singapore retail store BFF Zakka, which she co-owns with local actress Ann Kok.

Said Liu: "Two renowned fengshui masters who came on separate occasions to my store told me the same thing.

"They said there is a ghost living at the back of my shop and he is an old man.

"I didn't 'chase' the old man's ghost away because he hasn't caused any harm."

When asked if she would, like her character, bring a person back from the dead, she laughed and said she would never do that.

"I don't want people to think that Bring Back The Dead is just a horror flick. It's actually a heart-warming and touching story that uses the theme of the supernatural to bring out its essence," she said.

"What everyone learns at the end of the film is that in life, you have to let go of the dead because they have already gone to a better place.

"To want to keep them around is selfish because it doesn't benefit them, it benefits only yourself."

cchar@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on December 31, 2014.
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