Vietnam’s first theatrical found-footage horror is coming to North America

Vietnamese horror “Lầu Chú Hoả: The Deadliest Mansion” is crossing the Pacific.

The found-footage film opens in North American theaters on September 4 through Mockingbird Pictures, with screenings planned at select AMC, Regal and Cinemark locations. Directed by Hùng Trần, the movie has already earned roughly VND 78 billion, about $3 million, in Vietnam.

A group of young streamers breaks into the Hứa family mansion looking for content. Bad plan. Something inside wakes up and turns their little view-chasing expedition into a supernatural mess.

The house carries a real Vietnamese urban legend behind it. Stories have long claimed that the mansion was haunted by the daughter of wealthy businessman Hui Bon Hoa, who was allegedly isolated after contracting leprosy and later died. Those stories had already inspired the 1973 film “The Ghost of the Hui Family,” regarded as Vietnam’s first horror movie, although the film itself is now largely lost.

That history gives “The Deadliest Mansion” more to chew on than another bunch of influencers poking around an abandoned building with night-vision cameras.

Found footage works beautifully with local folklore anyway. “Noroi: The Curse” understood that. So did “The Medium” with its mock-documentary approach. The format gets much creepier when the mythology feels older than the people filming it.

Now North American audiences get a shot at this one in September.