A Useful Ghost

and exploitation into a deadpan comedy about a haunted vacuum cleaner. At its best, the film plays like an offbeat fable about love and labour, though its ambition occasionally makes it feel loose and uneven. The tone shifts constantly—dry, stone‑faced humour sits alongside genuine heartbreak and sharp social satire. Long, patient scenes and deadpan delivery create a space where the absurd and the tragic coexist, a striking effect that may test viewers expecting a conventional horror film or rom‑com. Beneath its oddball premise, the film digs into deeper themes: exploitation and capitalism, memory as resistance (with memory serving as a metaphor for how societies bury labour abuses and national guilt), and the complicity of the oppressed. These layers enrich the narrative far beyond its “haunted vacuum” hook, even if they unfold in a loose, episodic structure that can feel sprawling. Ultimately, A Useful Ghost is a strange, visually inventive, and emotionally resonant ghost story that uses its ridiculous premise to explore grief, labour, and what it means to be “useful” within a dehumanising system.