- ผี means both ghost and spirit, and many Thai spirits protect people rather than scare them.
- Mae Nak, who died in childbirth and kept waiting for her husband, is Thailand's most famous ghost.
- The krasue, krahang and phi pop are the classic village horrors. The pret, the hungry ghosts, come from Buddhist teaching.
- Spirit houses give the spirit of the land a home. Look, but don't touch the offerings.
- Thai horror films like Shutter, Pee Mak and Death Whisperer are a fun way to hear these words in use.
The short answer
The Thai word ผีpǐi covers far more than the English "ghost". It's the restless spirit of someone who died badly, but also the guardian spirit of a house, the spirit living in an old tree, and your own ancestors. Some ghosts want to hurt you; many just want respect, and a few bring luck if you treat them well.
You'll meet them everywhere in Thailand: in the little spirit houses outside homes and offices, in shrines hung with dresses and garlands, in late-night radio stories and in a film industry that has made Thai horror famous worldwide. Here are the ghosts every Thai knows, the stories behind them and the words to talk about them.
Thai ghost field guide
Thirteen spirits, from household guardians to the floating head. Filter by where you might meet them, and play the names and example sentences.
Who's who among Thai ghosts
Thailand's most famous ghost: a young wife who died in childbirth and kept waiting at home for her husband. Today she has a busy shrine in Bangkok.
The spirit of a woman who died together with her unborn child. Thais count it among the fiercest ghosts of all, and Mae Nak is the best-known example.
From Buddhist teaching: someone reborn hungry for their greed or wrongdoing. Pictured as tall as a palm tree, with a mouth as small as the eye of a needle.
A woman by day. At night her head leaves her body and floats off with its organs dangling below, looking for raw or filthy food. Neighbouring countries have her too.
The krasue's male counterpart: an ordinary villager by day who flies at night with two rice-winnowing baskets for wings and a rice pestle for a tail.
A spirit of the northeast that enters a living person and eats their insides from within. Stories say it comes from misused magic. It's also called ผีปอบ.
A beautiful woman who lives in takhian trees, a tall hardwood. People pay respect at her trees for luck, some hoping she will hint at lottery numbers in a dream, and old people warn against cutting such trees down.
A young woman in a green Thai dress who lives in wild banana trees and appears on full-moon nights. People tie coloured cloth around her trees to keep her happy.
A ghost of canals and rivers, often said to be someone who drowned, that lures swimmers to their death. Thai dictionaries also describe พราย as the ghost of a woman who died pregnant.
The spirits who look after a house and the family in it. They expect respect: loud quarrels at home are said to upset them.
The spirit who owns a piece of land. You ask its permission before building, and it gets a small shrine of its own.
The spirits of grandparents and earlier ancestors, who protect their descendants. Families, especially in the north, still honour them with ceremonies.
A little boy's spirit kept in a figurine, given red drinks and toys in return for luck in business. The old ritual used a dried stillborn baby; today most are statues or dolls.
Mae Nak, Thailand's most famous ghost
The story is set in the 1800s, in the reign of King Rama IV, beside the Phra Khanong canal on what was then the edge of Bangkok. Nak is pregnant when her husband, Mak, is sent off to war. While he's away, she and the baby die in childbirth. When Mak finally comes home, his wife and child are waiting for him, and he won't believe the neighbours who warn him that he's living with a ghost.
Then one day Nak drops a lime off the porch, and Mak sees her arm stretch all the way to the ground to pick it up. He runs, hides behind a หนาด (nàat) bush, a plant ghosts are said to fear, and escapes to Wat Mahabut, a temple she can't enter. Heartbroken, Nak terrorises the village until a monk captures her spirit. Versions differ: in many she is sealed in a clay pot and thrown into the canal, and in others the famous monk Somdet To persuades her to move on, promising she'll meet Mak again in a future life.
Nak is a ผีตายทั้งกลม (pĕe dtaai táng glom), the ghost of a woman who died together with her unborn child, which Thais consider among the most powerful spirits of all. But she's remembered as much for her love as for her anger, and the story has been retold on screen more than 20 times since the 1950s.
Krasue, krahang and phi pop
These are the ghosts of village nights, and of the stories Thai grandparents tell.
- The krasue (กระสือgrà-sʉ̌ʉ) is a woman who lives an ordinary life by day. At night her head leaves her body and floats away, her organs dangling beneath it, looking for raw meat or filth to eat. Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia have their own versions of her.
- The krahang (กระหัง) is her male counterpart, another villager with a secret. He flies at night with two rice-winnowing baskets for wings and a rice pestle for a tail. Some say he was a sorcerer who lost control of his magic.
- The phi pop (ปอบbpɔ̀ɔp) belongs to the northeast and Laos. It slips inside a living person and eats their organs from within, and it can pass from one host to the next.
Pret, the hungry ghosts
The เปรตbprèet comes from Buddhist teaching rather than village folklore. It's someone reborn into endless hunger and thirst because of greed, stinginess or wrongs done in life, especially to their parents. Paintings show pret as tall as a sugar palm, with a mouth as small as the eye of a needle, so they can never eat enough.
In southern Thailand, the pret get their own festival. During the Tenth Month Festival (สารทเดือนสิบ, sàat deuuan sìp), around September or October, the dead are believed to be let out to visit their families. In Nakhon Si Thammarat, families make merit for them at the temples and leave food out for them, and afterwards people scramble to grab it, a custom called ชิงเปรต (ching-bprèet).
Why spirit houses are everywhere
Almost every Thai home, shop, hotel and office has one: a little shrine on a post, usually in a corner of the plot. It's for the spirit who owns the land. People build on its land, so they give it a home of its own and keep it happy with offerings. A Brahmin priest is often invited to choose the spot and hold the ceremony that sets it up.
You'll hear two names. A ศาลพระภูมิ is for Phra Phum, the guardian deity of the land; a ศาลเจ้าที่ is for the local spirit of the place, and some people call it ศาลตายาย (sǎan dtaa-yaai), the grandparents' shrine. Many homes have both, side by side, though people often use the names loosely.
- Offerings are rice, fruit, sweets, flower garlands and incense, and very often a bottle of red strawberry soda with a straw in it.
- Little figurines of people and animals keep the spirit company and serve it.
- Zebra statues pile up at roadside shrines near accident black spots. One explanation is that a zebra crossing means safety; another is that the stripes ward off the spirits blamed for crashes.
Where Thai ghost beliefs come from
Thai ghost belief has layers. The oldest is the belief in the spirits of houses, land, forests and water, which Thais share with their neighbours across Southeast Asia. Brahmanism, through Brahmin priests and court ritual, added deities like Phra Phum. Buddhism added karma and rebirth: the pret, and the idea that the living can help the dead.
That help is merit. Families ทำบุญtam-bun at the temple and then กรวดน้ำgrùuat-náam, slowly pouring water while the monks chant, to send the merit to relatives who have died. Many of the fiercest ghosts are people who died badly: a violent or sudden death, ตายโหงdtaai-hǒong, is believed to leave a spirit that can't rest.
Ghosts even have their own party. At Phi Ta Khon, in Dan Sai in Loei province, locals parade in huge masks carved from the thick base of coconut palm fronds and topped with sticky-rice steamer baskets. The date changes every year because local spirit mediums choose it, usually in June or July.
Ghost words and idioms
These are the words you'll hear around a ghost story, in a horror film or when a friend swears their room is haunted.
ผี also turns up in everyday expressions that have nothing to do with the dead:
- ผีเข้าผีออก, "ghosts going in and out": blowing hot and cold, good one minute and bad the next.
- ผีซ้ำด้ำพลอย: being kicked when you're down, when one piece of bad luck follows another.
- ผีถึงป่าช้า, "the corpse has reached the cemetery": having to go through with something because there's no other choice.
- ผีพนัน, a "gambling ghost", is a compulsive gambler. And ผีเสื้อ, which looks like "shirt ghost", is simply a butterfly.
Thai ghost films and series
Horror is one of Thailand's most popular film genres, and Thai directors happily mix it with comedy and romance. Ghost films are also good listening practice: the dialogue is everyday Thai, the same ghost words come up again and again, and you'll want to watch to the end. Turn on Thai subtitles if they're available.
| Title | Ghost | Why watch it | Where to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nang Nak นางนาก · 1999 | Mae Nak | Nonzee Nimibutr's serious, beautiful retelling of the legend, and the first Thai film to earn 100 million baht. | Check local listings. |
| Shutter ชัตเตอร์ กดติดวิญญาณ · 2004 | A vengeful spirit in photographs | The film that took Thai horror worldwide. It was remade in India, the US (2008) and Indonesia (2025). | Free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla in the US; to rent elsewhere. |
| Pee Mak พี่มาก..พระโขนง · 2013 | Mae Nak | The legend as a comedy, told from her husband's side, and one of the biggest Thai box-office hits ever. The dialogue is modern, everyday Thai, despite the period setting. | To rent or buy on Apple TV in the US. |
| Inhuman Kiss แสงกระสือ · 2019 | Krasue | A krasue love story set in the 1940s, and Thailand's Oscar entry. A sequel followed in 2023. | Check local listings. |
| The Medium ร่างทรง · 2021 | Spirit possession | A dark mock documentary about a family of spirit mediums in Isan, directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and produced by the Korean director Na Hong-jin. Much of the dialogue is in Isan. | Shudder and AMC+ in the US and Canada. |
| Death Whisperer ธี่หยด · 2023 | A spirit in a black dress | A family terrorised in a Kanchanaburi village in 1972. It earned over 500 million baht in Thailand, and two sequels followed, in 2024 and 2025. | Netflix, with both sequels. |
| The Undertaker สัปเหร่อ · 2023 | Fear of ghosts, and a lost love | An Isan comedy-drama about a young man who's scared of ghosts but expected to take over his father's job as the village undertaker. A sequel came out in 2026. | Check local listings. |
| School Tales The Series Series, 2022 | School ghost stories | Eight episodes of ghost stories set in a Thai high school, from seasoned Thai horror directors. | Netflix. |
| Terror Tuesday: Extreme อังคารคลุมโปง: เอ็กซ์ตรีม · Series, 2024 | Listeners' true stories | Eight episodes based on experiences listeners sent to the Thai ghost-story show Angkhan Khlumpong. | Netflix. |
Streaming rights differ by country and change often. We checked in October 2026; JustWatch shows what's available where you are.
Ghost stories are a radio genre in Thailand too. The Shock has broadcast listeners' ghost stories since 1994, and Angkhan Khlumpong, the show behind Terror Tuesday, does the same. Our guide to learning Thai with YouTube has tips for listening to real Thai.
Tips for visitors
- Treat spirit houses like small temples. Look and take photos, but don't touch or move the offerings, sit on the platform or put your things on it.
- Follow your Thai friends' lead. If they wai a shrine as they pass, or your driver honks or wais at a big roadside shrine, that's respect, and you're welcome to join in.
- Visit Mae Nak's shrine at Wat Mahabut, dressed as you would for any temple. It's a working shrine, so watch quietly rather than joking about the ghost.
- Halloween is an import. Malls, bars and theme parks in big cities now hold Halloween events and haunted houses, but Thailand's own ghost festivals are Phi Ta Khon and the southern Tenth Month Festival.
Learn the Thai behind the stories.
ThaiFlip's dictionary has the words in this guide, from ผี to เฮี้ยน, with recordings and example sentences you can save and review in the app.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Thai word for ghost?
ผี (pǐi). It means both "ghost" and "spirit": a frightening ghost, the guardian spirit of a house, or an ancestor. วิญญาณ (win-yaan) is a more formal word for the soul or spirit of someone who has died.
Who is Mae Nak?
The ghost of a young woman from Phra Khanong, now part of Bangkok, who died in childbirth while her husband was away at war and kept waiting for him at home. It's Thailand's best-known ghost story, retold on screen more than 20 times, and her shrine at Wat Mahabut is still busy.
What is a krasue?
A female ghost whose head leaves her body at night and floats around with its organs hanging below, looking for raw or filthy food. By day she looks like an ordinary woman. Cambodian, Lao and Malay folklore have similar ghosts.
Why do Thai buildings have spirit houses?
To give the spirit who owns the land a home of its own. People keep it happy with offerings of food, drinks, flowers and incense, and ask it to protect the house or business.
Do Thai people believe in ghosts?
Belief varies from person to person, but ghosts are part of everyday culture. Spirit houses stand outside most buildings, ghost stories fill radio, TV and cinemas, and many people pay respect at shrines and take care not to offend spirits.
Is Halloween celebrated in Thailand?
It isn't a traditional Thai festival, but Halloween parties and haunted houses are now common in big cities. Thailand's own ghost festivals are Phi Ta Khon in Loei and the Tenth Month Festival in the south.
What's a good Thai ghost film to start with?
Pee Mak (2013), a funny, romantic retelling of Mae Nak in clear central Thai. For real scares, try Shutter (2004) or Death Whisperer (2023).
Recordings and example sentences come from the ThaiFlip dictionary. Legends vary from place to place and teller to teller; we've followed the most common versions. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we'll check it.
