There are stories that are great in storytelling or have memorable characters or the plot goes away from the typical high school-university students, doctors or engineers, that make you gush about it for months or the series is too short and we end up craving so much more. Many BL fans forgive almost everything just because an actor is cute or the show has steamy scenes and overlook more important things like the plot or the acting because as some have commented on my posts before, "we are just looking for entertainment". That's ok, but if we can get well-made entertainment, wouldn't that be much better?

"Ghost Host Ghost House" is a show that began with an interesting premise of a boy who returns to Thailand after living abroad only to discover his aunt, uncle and cousins are all dead and he can see dead people. Unfortunately, 8 episodes were not enough to cover all the holes this story had that ended up making me go, wait, what happened with that? Or, how did we even get to this point? Of course, there are some good things and bad things, the show is made by Vibie and that means the resources of a GMMTV or a similar company are not the same. However, comparisons are inevitable and while this is NOT a disaster of a show, it falls below "He's Coming To Me" and "Something in My Room" who handled the ghost theme and the plot much better while it is on a similar level to "Peach of Time". Granted, those 3 shows had a ghost fall in love with a living character and in "Ghost Host Ghost House" both main leads are alive and well, but still... let's dive into some details.

The good:

1) Side characters shine: Indeed, as some already pointed out, Guide (playing See-foon) and Natty (playing See-nam) provide much deeper moments for us than Boy (playing Pluem) and Tod (playing Kevin) do. Guide is making his acting debut (he appeared briefly in "Why You... Y Me?" and Natty is also brand new to the industry and, despite that, both gives us some memorable acting moments in episodes 6 and 7 when they both use their remaining merit points to live their "Last Day". See-foon uses it to spend time with Pluem and Kevin as he was bullied in school and had no friends, so he wanted to spend his last moments doing whatever he wanted and just eating and talking with people who cared about him. The scene when he disappears is well done as his face really portrays the emotions of feeling sad and maybe angry after suffering the bullying and now being happy and relieved that his last moments were with a friend and with his cousin. See-nam also has interesting moments as he reconciles with her father in a tearjerker scene, plays the guitar during the BBQ scene in which Pluem and Kevin comment they've never seen her smile like that and also visits Prim at school (using her merit points) to long for the love that never happened due to her death. Incz (playing Prim) also has interesting moments when she is not speaking and then when she finds out the reason See-nam never visited in the hospital after the accident (the car crash that killed Kevin's family also kills Pluem's dad which causes trauma in Prim). All side actors, including the the two adults provided good moments.

2) The lack of tropes/clichés: And trust me, I put this a heavy positive... this is a Thai BL WITHOUT, I repeat, WITHOUT, the usual tropes of: a) a crazy woman who is in love with one of the main male leads and cannot or will not accept that he is not in love with her so she screams like a maniac or does whatever silly thing her heart desires to break up the main couple. b) Parents who are vehemently against their son being gay or their son dating another boy and try to break them up by shipping their son abroad for several years or bribing the other guy to disappear or trying to convince them they are not good together. c) Parents who are completely in favor of their son being gay and acting like obsessed cheerleaders when their son brings his boyfriend home. d) Ridiculous or silly plots in order to make the main couple meet and fall in love. e) Friends who are more like shippers, or even worse, actual shippers who imagine all the steamy scenes between the main couple just to give the viewers some eye candy but that doesn't match with the rest of the story. f) Another male character who acts as the third in a love triangle when its obvious he has 0% chance of getting one of the main leads.

3) Chemistry: And I know some are not fully convinced, but watching Tod and Boy interact outside the show and in the show feels good compared to Peat and Fort in "Love in the Air" when Peat sometimes looks so awkward when Fort tries to hug him or touch him outside of the show. Tod is 6 years younger than Boy (which is why all call him "uncle" in the behind-the-scenes and in other Vibie Gen content) but despite the age gap, both adjusted quite well and the love scenes (which were quite well made) don't look forced, don't look awkward, and don't look like one of the actors is just waiting for the "cut" from the director to run away as far as he can). Plus, the rest of the cast seem to get along quite well despite some barely being on-screen together.

Now the bad:

1) Plot: I'm sorry, but I can't overlook this. This show had so much potential but it was ruined in 2 parts in my opinion. First, when Kevin finds out his family is dead, which I felt it was too soon... but ok, I felt the writer and the director could go in a different direction, but no... first the ghost hunters trying to break-in and then the thieves who get scared by the family which is what causes Kevin to find out, were straight out of a comedic scary movie. The second time was during the beach scenes when Kevin suddenly starts having doubts about committing to Pluem because apparently he can't forget about Jake (his boyfriend who was never a boyfriend officially, just a good friend as Kevin specifically points out near the end of episode 8), he also feels this is too good to be true and is scared to lose it all. All those might be valid concerns, but they came out of nowhere and after talking to Pluem in all the other episodes, this time he just packs his things and leaves... I mean... ok... writers needed a bit more things to fill out episodes 6-8, but still, it didn't make much sense. Kevin is suddenly so insecure and scared and he decides just to run away instead of talking.
Then we have Jake and his story, Prim and her story with See-nam, and the deaths of the family and Pluem's father... not much is revealed about why Jake only chats with See-foon (other than See-foon entering Kevin's dream to find out about Jake), in fact, Jake only starts appearing on episode 5 but according to him, he has been there all the time (even following Kevin from the US to Thailand, go figure... a traveling ghost!). Prim and See-nam are attracted to each other but we only got glimpses of their background story and we know how the family dies but it is weird that apparently there is no investigation, nobody notifies Kevin's mother in America, nobody in the neighborhood finds it odd that the family was there one day and gone the next, etc... So, too many stories that could have been further developed and ended up disappearing like a ghost.

2) The acting: And this not a critic to the actors... I've criticized bad acting before but this time I feel is not their fault. Most are new, Tod appeared in "Love Area Part 1" and the disaster that was "Love Area Part 2" but the rest have no experience, so the acting coach, the writer and the director should have made it clear in what direction they wanted to go with the story and what type of emotions they needed the actors to convey... as some felt awkward. The slow-paced dialogues seem to be the new trend in Thai BLs and while that is a bit annoying, this time it didn't bother that much like it did in "Bite Me", for example.

In the end, this show is not the worst by any stretch of the imagination but you will watch it and aside from some specific moments you will forget about it very quickly.