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'Zeta': Indonesian zombie flick trades gore for drama
Rather than going full blast with gore and violence, zombie flick Zeta highlights the living and their often complicated relationships with each other.
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Zombie land: The film's living dead exist because of a brain-eating parasite spreading through Jakarta's tainted waters. (Swan Studios/-)
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ather than going full blast with gore and violence, zombie flick Zeta highlights the living and their often complicated relationships with each other.
The obsession of the living dead in fiction has been observed throughout the years, but 2019 seems to be the year the dead rises from the grave to dominate the cultural zeitgeist and Indonesia’s screens.
Indonesian horror is typically associated with ghastly ghouls and ghosts, which are staples of local TV shows and movies all year round.
The undead in the West tend to be more corporeal. Brain and flesh-eating zombies have become so popular that it has become its own genre.
Zombies do not get as much love here compared to say, the kuntilanak (vampiric ghost). With the zombie craze still alive in media today, it is fitting that the genre would show up in some form here.
Enter Zeta. The title of the movie refers to a zombie born from a brain-eating parasite. Through the infected host’s saliva, the parasite is able to multiply and infect others, causing pandemonium in the streets of Jakarta.
