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Scare-fest takes Indonesian horror to new low
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 12/03/2006 1:06 PM | Life
Rizal Iwan, Contributor, Jakarta
For whatever reason, the end of this year is marking a busy line-up of local horror films. Numerous horror and slasher flicks have invaded our cinemas one after another and several more are lurking in their post-production lairs, ready to jump out on anticipating audiences for more shrieks and screams.
However, what peaks in quantity apparently slumps in quality.
So far, none in the long lines of these so-called scary movies qualify, even in part, as decent films.
Kuntilanak -- the one that started the scare fever back in early November -- is a movie so full of itself it thinks people would freak out at its highly stylized specters and hip editing (when the only thing that freaked people out is its lead actors' bad acting, far-fetched settings and uneven script).
But what do you know, Kuntilanak turned out to be the best of the lot, compared to the dreadful flow of bad films that have followed.
Hantu Bangku Kosong (The Empty Chair) is a film that horrifies, not with its potentially creepy tale of a haunted school desk, but with its zero level of common sense, trippy dialogue and the worst case of bad acting in film history. Not to mention the silly music score, which attempts to go for exotic and creepy, but ends up hilarious and distracting.
Next in line is slasher film KM 14, which attempts to terrorize not with mystical beings but with a psychotic, flesh-and-blood villain.
Now, when I said that Indonesian horror cinema just hit rock bottom with Hantu Bangku Kosong, with KM 14 it scrapes the bottom of the barrel, digs its way further down, buries itself there and prays for a miracle to find its way up again.
The film catapults way past ridiculous and lands on pure stupidity. It overflows with stupid characters: the protagonists are stupid, the villains are stupid, and what does that say about the filmmakers? If a screenwriter cannot so much as make up one single intelligent character, how can we expect him to deliver a remotely intelligent script?
Plus, the film is shot and edited like a bad corporate video, with practically every editing style you can find in amateur video editing software on a cell phone.
The latest addition to this year-end scare fest is Hantu Jeruk Purut (The Ghost of Jeruk Purut Cemetery), an exercise on a popular urban legend about a notorious cemetery in South Jakarta.
While the film is slightly better than its horrendous predecessors, it still stumbles on a poor script, hazy direction and a worrying lack of originality, shamelessly reenacting every scare tactic in modern horror cinema from The Grudge to Final Destination.
It is ironic and terribly sad that Indonesian horror cinema should find itself in such a condition, considering the country is a well of age-old supernatural folklore and genuinely creepy urban legends.
One of the perennial problems with such filmmakers is that they always underestimate their audience. They think audiences are easy to please with cheap scares and spooky make-up, and couldn't be bothered to view the film as a whole.
Problem number two is the mindless exploitation of said local folklore and urban legends. Believed to be a guaranteed draw for the audience, the filmmakers tag these familiar tall tales onto their films without paying enough respect to the tales themselves.
Kuntilanak improvises with the traditional, titular Lady in White by giving her hooves and a murderous nature (a deviation that ruined the spook factor for so many complaining viewers).
Hantu Bangku Kosong brags about how it is based on true events (presumably the haunted, empty desk in a West Javanese school that led to a mass possession), while what it does is merely borrows the empty desk element to create a whole other, much cornier story.
KM 14's creepy title apparently just refers to the insignificant turnpike exit that leads to the axe murderer's house, while it could have addressed the numerous urban legends about haunted turnpikes in Indonesia.
It remains to be seen how the upcoming Pocong 2 (due out this month) will treat the issue about the skipping, shrouded ghost.
If it turns to be another loose screw, it will be the last nail in the coffin of Indonesian horror cinema.
The reviewer is a film columnist for Jakarta Java Kini. More Web News
