Vietnamese found-footage horror hit Lầu Chú Hỏa: The Deadliest Mansion heads to North American theaters on September 4, 2026.
Vietnamese horror has another chance to make an impression overseas as Lầu Chú Hỏa: The Deadliest Mansion heads to North American theaters on September 4, 2026 – directed by Hùng Trần, the found-footage horror film became a major theatrical hit in Vietnam after opening in June, and it will now get a North American rollout through Mockingbird Pictures, with screenings planned across AMC, Regal and Cinemark locations.
What is Lau Chu Hoa: The Deadliest Mansion about?
The movie follows a group of young streamers who break into the abandoned Hứa family mansion in search of content that will get them attention online, where the building is tied to the long-running Vietnamese legend of the Ghost of the Hứa Family, and the group’s attempt to turn the location into entertainment quickly goes wrong.
Their intrusion awakens a malevolent force that has supposedly been sealed away for more than a century, so what starts as a livestream designed to attract viewers becomes a recording of something considerably more horrifying.
The story isn’t based on some completely invented haunted-house legend created specifically for the movie either, because the Hứa family ghost story is a well-known urban legend associated with early 20th-century Saigon and the Chợ Lớn area.
At the centre of the legend is a young woman from the Hứa family who was allegedly confined by her family because of an illness, where stories surrounding her death and supposed haunting subsequently became part of local folklore.
Lầu Chú Hỏa also already has its place in Vietnamese cinema, because the film was promoted as Vietnam’s first theatrical horror movie made in the found-footage/mockumentary style, with the story unfolding through the perspective of the people experiencing the events.
It Was a Major Hit in Vietnam
The film opened in Vietnamese cinemas on June 12, 2026, where it quickly became one of the country’s major horror successes of the year, and according to Variety, Lầu Chú Hỏa attracted more than one million admissions in Vietnam and passed VND78 billion, roughly $3 million, in cumulative box office – it also topped the local box office following its June release.
The film was directed by Hùng Trần, with the cast including Trần Kỳ Anh, Nguyễn Minh Thời, Ngọc Chí Bảo, Phụng Hoàng, Nguyễn Công Nương and Dũng Hà, with a reported runtime of 94 minute.
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