Synopsis? It goes something like this: “7 directors, 6 stories, 1 emotion – FEAR!

“Show Unit“: A man investigates an intruder in his house only to become the victim of a deadly game of extortion and murder.

“Titisan Naya” aka “Incarnation of Naya“: During her family’s traditional sacred-kris cleansing-ritual a skeptical teenager discovers that her ancestors are not just an old memory.

“Peeper“: A Peeping Tom finds his comeuppance in the backstage of a Wayang Orang dance theater. An exploration of the other meaning of ‘love blinds’ by Ray Nayoan.

“The List“: Boy meets girl. Boy dumps girl. It’s magic, with a twist. A scorned woman engages a “dukun” to use black magic to satisfy her appetites for revenge.

“The Rescue”: The Rescue is a fast-paced chase through an apocalyptic Jakarta inhabited with cannibalistic “sub-humans”. A patrol of mobile brigadier Gegana Special Forces must lead civilian survivors to safety before they are all infected.

“Dara“: One woman, three men. Let the feast begin… Dara is a story about haute cuisine and the lengths to which a beautiful chef will go to in order to satisfy her customers.”

Seems anthology horror is all the rage in Asia these days with plenty of examples from Thailand, HK, Malaysia, and Indonesia to choose from. So why grab this particular film? Well, Brian Yuzna certainly holds a special place in Neko’s heart for his earlier Lovecraft inspired horror efforts “Reanimator” and it’s sequels as well as “From Beyond” so it’s a given that this one could be a slice above the usual Indonesian effort. Add to that the inclusion of the Mo Brothers short “Dara” which I’d been on the lookout for and there was no way I could pass this up.

So what the heck are you waitin’ for? It’s time to “Read On”, o’ Gentle Visitors!

Anthology films…. some can be really good, others fairly bad. They’re a mixed bag at best, generally made up of small little germs of ideas for stories that just weren’t deep enough to fill the run time of a whole movie. Does this mean they can be dismissed as a format for telling good involving stories that grip a viewer? Not at all… The best of them can leave you with just as full an experience as a feature length movie. Unfortunately, any anthology is only as strong as it’s weakest tale. So finding a number of them to string together can be the real challenge if you want to pull off a successful film.

“Takut” has a lot going for it…. but Neko would have to say that perhaps more is not always best. I’m thinking that in a movie that only runs for roughly 90 minutes, “Takut” takes a big risk by going for 6 separate stories…. on average only giving each tale an average of 15 minutes to make it’s story work. Furthermore… unlike some other horror anthologies, there really isn’t any encompassing framework to hold them together and make them seem like they belong together. This I think is the weakest part about “Takut”, and I’d have to say it definitely affects the overall impression I got while watching it.

That’s a real shame too…. as there are some very nice bits of work on display here, with good acting and imagery that deserve to be seen.  Producer/ Director Brian Yuzna obviously has seen the raw potential of Indonesian filmaking that your Favorite Catgirl discovered for herself years ago. Not surprising then that he’d want to tap into that relatively untapped talent for his first release under his Komodo Films label. Luckily I can say, much of the offerings here are of the best caliber available from an industry that for the most part is derided for it’s ability to churn out what can seem to be an endless supply of for the most part very derivative and forgettable horror films for their own local market. But it dosen’t help that they look….. well…. sort of “thrown together”, not really parts of a cohesive whole.

First up, we have “Show Unit”, a look at the accidental killing of a little girl by her mom’s new boyfriend and the escalating problems he has trying to cover up the crime. Not only does the body count rack up as he’s forced to kill his girlfriend’s ex to prevent him discovering his daughter’s corpse, but a mysterious stranger across the street hiding in the Show Unit apartment wants in on the fun as well. It’s a fairly easy to get plot with no real surprises, but definitely has the most interesting look of all the shorts, with it’s desaturated Black & White cinematography punctuated by surprising splashes of vibrant color here and there throughout. Not a great little tale but certainly a pretty one.

Then comes “Incarnation of Naya”, a nod to the Asian ghost story about a modern young woman with no sense of Tradition or respect for the Spiritual who discovers that one’s ancestors are definitely not to be taken lightly. While well done, and with moments that are both creepy and suspenseful, the story kind of left me cold, with it’s thoroughly unlikeable main character. There’s the usual haunting stuff, and the appearance of the ghosts, before the end but none of it is all that surprising or original, despite the very slick look of the short. By the time she’s been possessed by the spirit of an old ancestor, I found myself wishing something a bit more nasty had happened to her. But…. then this is an Indonesian film, so that sort of thing isn’t really likely…..

Then we get “Peeper”, a look at the fate of one peeping tom who gets a bit more than he bargained for when given the chance to spy on the dressing room of a famous Traditional Dancer, and discovers the secret of her almost mystical youth and beauty. Trust me… it’s not the miracle of Botox either. Nope… seems ritual cannibalism isn’t just for living forever… it can make you pretty, sexy, and talented too. This one isn’t a bad little tale at all, and is probably my second favorite out of the whole anthology, and the one I’d want to see expanded into a full length treatment similar to that done for “Dara”.

Naturally, Brian Yuzna himself, has a go at telling a tale as well in “The List”, as we get to see a scorned woman hire a local black sorcerer to punish her ex lover and his new girlfriend with his evil magic. Our story here plays to me less like an Indonesian film though, and feels more like an old TV episode of “Tales of the Darkside” or “Tales From The Crypt”. Not a bad thing, but somewhat out of the overall theme despite the Indonesian trappings and the creepy dukun. There’s a nice twist ending, (which I won’t spoil for you, but if you do watch it, you’ll see it coming waaaay before the “surprise”) but the Shaw Brothers style gore is probably what makes this one stand out from most of the others. A nice tale, but one that even with it’s crawling spiders, face full of leeches and other nasty witchcraft isn’t all that new or surprising.

We even get a Zombie Apocalypse story in here. “The Rescue” take us along for a short peek at how Indonesia just might cope when the hordes of the “Living Impaired” start their brain munching rampage. Unfortunately… the tale is long on running around and doing the action bit, and short on… well… details, overall plot, character development, and even time. (Being by far the shortest of the six tales presented overall….) It’s well done, like all the rest, but suffers the most I think by it’s truncated length. It’s not bad, just not great…. and also bringing with it absolutely no new ideas on the zombie genre at all. Just sort of think of it as “Zombie Light”…..

Perhaps the best of the lot is the sequence held for last, the Mo Brothers original short “Dara” from which their recent full length film was inspired. I’d been wanting to find this one since I found that expanded film, “Rumah Darah”….. It’s here in it’s full 22 minute running time, and one can see even from this initial tale the sheer gruesome fun potential in it’s simple story. A different story, mind you…. but most of the cast from the full length film are on board for the fun as we get a look at Dara as a single woman and restaurateur with… how shall we say…. a unique and interesting view of speed dating and food service supply. Unlike the feature film version, there’s a definite ironic humor about the whole story… something I’m now wishing had been a part of that film too. The best bit has to be when suitor after suitor arrive to have dinner with the enigmatic and mysterious Dara and she pauses each time to stop by the kitchen to update her dating calendar.

Not to say the gut wrenching gore is missing… There’s plenty of the familiar mayhem to go around. Poor Adjie is quite without pretty wife in this version, and spends much of his time trapped in Dara’s basement abattoir awaiting a date with her chainsaw. Yep…. this one definitely deserved to get the full length treatment. As before, the standout performance is by Shareefa Daanish as Dara, both stylish and mysterious and with a surprising amount of wry evil humor this time out. I can definitely see myself wanting to see her reprise this character she’s made so much her own again. (Hint! Hint!!)

So…. how does “Takut” stack up? Overall it’s somewhat uneven for all it’s polish and budget, and seems to suffer by trying to do too much with too little available running time. I’m thinking that if a few more Indonesian directors… perhaps say Joko Anwar or Rizal Mantovani…. had been convinced to sign on, this could have been the Indonesian answer to Thailand’s hit “Phobia”, with more than enough footage to make it into 2 films rather than trying to cram all this into one. I can say it was worth a watch, but can’t really say it was a major hit with me. Neko gives it a solid 3 “Meows” out of 5, but that’s mostly due to the inclusion of “Dara” which I’ve been wanting to see for a while.

The DVD however is topnotch, with great English subtitles on board and a good widescreen format. The price, at around 10$ US is a winner too, making this one a worthy buy if you also want to see that particular short.

Yes, as always there’s a Trailer and I’d never dream of leaving you without it! Enjoy!!

Just when I think I’m over it, something new reminds me of him and I’m all teary and upset all over again. Today… for example… I finally got around to going into the spare bedroom I use for storage at the apartment and emptied out his Litterbox where it sat behind the door, for once and for all, taking it down to the dumpster and getting rid of it at last. Carolyn hadn’t said anything…. but I knew she’d been waiting patiently for me to get rid of it and move on.

Yes, yes…… and I know people have been waiting for me to move on here at the ol’ “Litterbox” as well. I’m wanting to get back to reviews, but things keep getting in my way lately…. Don’t worry… I’ve actually got some things ready, but I’m still trying to straighten out a lot of crazy things at work, so it could be a few days till I get the time to spring them on ya…. so keep checking back.

Till then, I’ll say a last  lil’ prayer for Goober in “Kitty Heaven” and “Meow, Meow for now!!”

This time…. it’s all about a movie I’ve been trying hard to find for quite some time. You see…. every once in a while, your Favorite Catgirl manages to snag a long searched for treasure… A film that somehow resists my every effort to track down despite my sometimes obsessive (and some might say crazy) efforts to make it my own. Occasionally it’s simply finding the DVD itself… (maybe forcing me to settle for a VCD or even a brittle old VHS tape just to see it at last) and other times it’s the subtitles which vex and elude me (And we all know how cranky THAT can make me, Hehehehe!!), but then there are those rare and inexplicable times the entire film seems to just drop right off the edge of the planet itself never seeming to come to light despite my best efforts to unearth it. When I finally find one of these, it’s always a thing to celebrate, and, as luck would have it, this time out my ceaseless efforts have brought me a copy of the 2006 Malay horror film “Susuk”. At last!! Just about when I’d about given up hope of ever encountering it….

Synopsis? Well here it goes: “Beauty & Fame has a price. Soraya is a young trainee nurse who is starting to feel dissatisfied by her mediocre and unremarkable life. A chance introduction to the world of glamour piques her earlier ambition to be a star. She does not succeed at first. But then she is told the forbidden practice of Susuk can help. She has to make a choice then whether to remain the way she is or cross the line into forbidden sins to realize her dreams.”

Naturally… as soon as it arrived in my mailbox, I just had to give it a watch and share my impressions with all you here at the ol’ Litterbox, o’ Gentle Visitors. As always, such a find carries with it certain expectations…. and this time is no different. But will I luck out and score a true gem, or be disappointed by a film that just doesn’t reach for those lofty levels of horror goodness?

Only one real way to find out… and that’s right, time to give it a look, so what are you waitin’ for? It’s time to “Read On!”

So…. exactly just what the heck is “The forbidden practice of Susuk” anyway, and why is it so scary? Well… looking it up on the internet tells me that it’s some sort of Traditional Witchcraft or Sorcery practiced on the Malay peninsula… and “involves the forbidden practice of inserting and embedding foreign objects such as gold, silver, and diamonds under a person’s skin in order to increase the person’s allure”…. Mmmmm? OK then? But what’s the scary part? Apparently it’s the idea that it’s a no-no to practice Sorcery in Islamic Malaysia and you are just asking to go to Hell if you involve yourself with it at all. Well…. that and you might change into some sort of demonic monster thirsting for human blood. Yep…. now that’s starting to sound promising!!

Our movie takes that idea and runs with it, giving us a character in Soraya (played by Diana Rafar) who seems to have it all… a promising career as a student nurse, a loving boyfriend named Kamal (played by Gambit Saifullah) and good friends to keep her centered and happy. So what’s wrong with her life? Mostly a stupid longing to throw away all that for a chance at the glamorous and exciting life of a Singing Idol. Mostly our film uses it’s time to give us in the audience a Moral lesson that displays this sort of wasted desire as a hollow goal with no real value beyond the loss of one’s true self. It’s preachy…. and that usually is somewhat of a turn off for this lil’ Catgirl but at least they do it with a nice plot seasoning of murder and cannibalism to tie it all together.

I wish I could say I liked the character of Soraya…. but unfortunately she’s pretty darn shallow and far too self absorbed to be sympathetic for a main heroine. Most of the other  singing divas in our story, like Susana (Ida Nerina) , Rozana (Aleeza Kassim), and Mona (Sofia Jane) all come across as pretty and talented, but also insufferably vain and conceited, interested totally in only what rewards Fame can bring them regardless of the cost to others. Thankfully, once our story finally gets going, and Susana goes all flesh eating crazy by breaking her particular Susuk’s taboo, they don’t last very long before receiving their just deserts.

This lack of a character you can root for could all be forgiven if the story just moved along in a direction that lent itself to making some overall sense…. but unfortunately…. it doesn’t. There’s a twist ending that comes at you right out of left field just when you think you have this one figured out. I’m not telling you what it is, but it makes for a somewhat confusing and unsatisfying ending overall.

So…. what sort of rating can I give “Susuk”? Well…. after my years of searching, I must admit it didn’t turn out to be the equal of “Chermin”, my overall favorite Malay horror effort or even the workman-like yet enjoyable “Santau”either. I suppose it’s nice production values, good special effects (by Malay standards) , and competent acting are worth something, so Your Favorite Catgirl can still give it a grudging 3 “Meows” out of 5… but just barely. D’ohh!!

The Malay DVD from Dragon Jester Entertainment is satisfactory, with a wide-screen Region Free presentation and acceptable English subtitles. I managed to snag my copy at a ridiculously low price too…. although since it was this hard to find for me, you won’t necessarily be as lucky should you want to see it as well. However…. I definitely wouldn’t log the long hours hunting it down that I did…. Unfortunately, it’s just not that good a film that missing it would be unforgivable or anything. Still…. if a more readily accessible HK DVD version were ever to pop up, and you want to see a different sort of Black Magic tradition, then it might just be worth a look for an evenings movie watchin’ fun.

Trailer? Yep…. Trust me,that was waaaaay easier to find than the DVD itself, and here it goes! Enjoy!

Sigh…. Ever have one of those days? You all know the ones I mean….. where it  seems as if the World itself and everything in it has turned to utter crap and wishes nothing but evil things for you? Ever had one of those days that turns into one of those weeks?…… or even lasts long enough to turn into one of those months?

July has become one of those things for me I’m sorry to say, and it’s not looking like it’s done torturing lil’ ol’ me quite yet. For most of this month work has been hammering me mercilessly with hair pulling stress levels…. more unexpected problems with my Credit card have surfaced yet again to give me grief…. and, most terrible of all….. my beloved kitty Goober made another escape from the apartment last week, turning up dead in the parking lot the next day. Worse… it was Carolyn who let him out the door accidentally that evening and we had the stupidest words over it that in my grief and anger should never have been said…… All I want to do these last few days is curl up and cry.

So…. as all you Gentle Visitors might have noticed, I’ve been pretty darn well absent from the ol’ Litterbox lately. I wish I could come up with a good excuse, but between work and my personal life just beating me about the head and shoulders lately, the truth is I just haven’t had the time or the energy to do much other than feel miserable…..

Still…. even though I’ve missed deadlines both here and at Delirium I wanted to at least post something here to let people know I’m still around…. just not my usual perky, happy self. I’ll be back soon….. but it’ll have to be once I’ve straightened a few things out with my mess of an existence. Till then…..

Lately as I’ve been surfing about, I’ve noticed that 2010 seems to have every blog I read making those “Top 10″ lists a “must have”. So who is this lil’ Catgirl to argue with such a trend. But…. who wants just another tired old list of “Top 10 News Stories” or “10 Best Films of 2010″ or “10 Celebrity Scandals of the Year”…. Certainly not me.

Nope. There’s just no way I could waste your time repeating any of those… it just wouldn’t have the “personal” touch my Diary posts have come to be known for. I know… I know… you think you all know this wacky, somewhat neurotic lil’ kitten pretty well by now. But there are a few things I haven’t shared…. till now, although I’m mostly toooo boring a lady to have as many as 10 secrets for you….. Anyway…. for those of you with a burning need to complete your “Neko-knowledge” I bring you… “5 Things You’ve Never… Ever… Known About Your Favorite Catgirl Princess”.

Let’s see…. where o’ where to begin?…. Well, here they go… in no particular order.

5) Neko Can’t Swim!! - Yep, despite many attempts to teach me over the years… I still can’t swim. Not a lick. This one probably results mostly from the fact that neither of my parents can swim either… so naturally there weren’t trips to the beach.. or the community pool… or even the ol’ swimmin’ hole when I was a wee girl. Yes… there was that gym class in middle school for this… but… It was then I discovered my tiny lil’ body stubbornly refuses to float like all human being are reputed to do. Nope! I sink… like a pebble right to the bottom. (At which time I panic, promptly start drowning, and that usually ends the “fun” of the whole experience..) Turns out not everybody can float… it requires a certain muscle to fat ratio that I didn’t have and a measure of relaxation which I seem never to attain. Oh well… dry land for this lil’ kitten!

4) Neko Has Never… Ever… Had a Driver’s License!! – Something that originally started when I nearly wrecked the first car I ever got behind the wheel of… a boyfriend’s car waaaay back in High School. After that I just never tried to learn again…. and whenever anyone would insist I should learn, I stubbornly dragged my heels against the idea. I’ve never really regretted this rather quirky and characteristically pigheaded decision… as I’ve always managed to make do without. I’ve always lived, worked, and shopped all within walking distance of wherever I have been throughout my life. While helping to keep me lean and fit over the years,it has also lead to some strange things occurring now and again. I was actually almost denied reentry to the US from a day-trip to Canada 10 years or so ago with some friends. It was incomprehensible to the Border Patrol and Customs that ANY adult American would have absolutely NO record of a driver’s license… even though I did at the time have a valid US passport with me!! I can still remember the idiotic Customs guy slipping in a few questions in Mandarin during my interview in a “clever” attempt to trip me up and prove I was really an illegal Chinese immigrant… no kidding! It took an hour to convince them then, and since 9/11 has actually made things harder I’ve never tried to go to Canada again… Who knows what sort of problems I’d have now!! I’m also given loads of problems getting into Bars and Nightclubs… and looking 10 years younger than my actual age has never ever helped either!!

3) Neko Dislikes Phones!! – I really.. really.. REALLY don’t like talking on the phone. I’ve never owned a cell phone either. Just don’t like them…. at all. Part of it probably stems from my general unease at speaking to someone who’s face I can’t see… and part of it is probably the way I’ve always thought the telephone was one of the worst utilized inventions ever. Carolyn is genuinely exasperated with this particular quirk of mine…. she just can’t seem to live without her cellphone and not being able to call me at the drop of a hat or text me about something makes her crazy sometimes. But I just don’t like them…. deep down inside I find the whole idea of having a phone constantly ringing at me….fighting for my attention…. annoying. The rest is probably just another of my irrational quirks… as well as a part of  Secret #2

2) Neko Is A Wee Bit Deaf… – Yep…. ever since birth. Although only close friends and acquaintances are really aware of it, I suffer from a measure of hearing loss, mostly in my left ear. It’s a birth defect… something to do with those little bones that vibrate along with your eardrum…. and as a result I miss chunks of conversation, mishear things, and the like. Ahhhh, yes…. and it’s probably one of the main reasons I don’t like talking on the phone…. Unfortunately the range of frequencies mostly affected fall right within the range of human speech…. D’ohhh!! I was nearly 5 years old before it really got noticed, and by then I’d mostly taught myself to compensate for it with a combination of positioning and lip reading without even realizing I needed to. Children, myself included, are amazingly resilient and resourceful it seems. A hearing aid was considered… but the Audiologists and doctors decided I was functional enough without it, and that it would more likely result in distraction from background noises I’m not even aware of.

And lastly…..

1) Neko is More Than a Wee Bit Paranoid….. -  Not in the psychotic agoraphobic “crazy cat-lady” sort of way, but still I’m really a very cautious woman. How cautious you ask? Well… although it’s embarrassing to mention, I’ve got a number of very odd quirks regarding my own personal safety. Let’s see….

Ahhh… I “window shop”…. But…. not to actually shop you see… often I catch myself doing it to be able to glance in a window just to see who might be following along behind me on the street. Sound a wee bit crazy? How about my habit of never taking the same route as I walk to work? Yep…. routine can be the thing that makes you vulnerable and that’s something I live in dread of. You already know my particular dread of “torture-porn” movies…. all part of my particular phobia, I guess. There are others… such as my desire to always be aware of the entrances and exits in any public place I might be in. Weirdly enough…. those locations, as full of people as they might be, never worry me as much a locations with only a couple of strangers in them. Go figure….

Strangely enough, I’ve never been threatened… attacked… or endangered in any meaningful way in my whole life. Honest!! Not even close. I’ve often wondered if my phobia in this regard was linked to some tragic episode in a past life…. It isn’t overwhelming and in no way prevents me from being a functional person, but it is very noticeable if you know me really well. (And only the level of comfort I’ve slowly come to feel here at the Litterbox lets me write about this one at all…. Thank goodness for the relative anonymity of the Internet…)

Whew….. Ok…. so now that you know what sort of crazy kitten I am, next time out I’m hoping we can get back to the fun of sharing my latest views on the nutty offbeat cinema that we all love, but hate to admit. That is if you don’t now all think I”m a total mental case that is….Hehehehe!!

Till then… “Meow, meow, for now!!”

Our synopsis for it goes like this: “Adjie (Ario Bayu) and Astrid (Sigi Wimala) will leave for Australia the very next day but before that Adjie wants to meet with his rebel sister, Ladya (Julie Estelle). Their meeting does not run smoothly in the beginning as Ladya keeps blaming Adjie for his past mistakes. After persuasion from Astrid, Ladya agrees to send Adjie off in the airport.

The next day on the way to the airport their journey are interrupted when a beautiful woman called Maya (Imelda Therinne) approached them for help as she has just been robbed and she needed their help to bring her home.

After reaching at her home they are introduced by an elegant and mysterious woman called Dara (Shareefa Daanish). And the sincere and good intentions of Dara is only the beginning of a disastrous outcome. Who is Dara actually? And…. will they be able to escape from this “House of Blood” alive?”

This one promised to be a bit more extreme than the usual Indonesian horror effort, and given that I was a little hesitant at first….. You all know what a timid and tender heart lurks inside this lil’ horror movie lovin’ Catgirl, but I told myself: “Awww…  C’mon…..It’s Indonesian for goodness sake…. How truly nasty could it really be?”

Ummmm… errrr…. well… pretty darn bloody, nasty and downright mean in a true “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” meets “The Hills Have Eyes” sorta way as it turns out….. So, do ya wanna know if it’s your cup of tea as well? Then all you gotta do is “Read On!!” and find out…..

I must say…. this one most certainly redefines my understanding of the latest Indonesian Horror films being made these days. Gone are my naive assumptions that the Indonesians are just too darn squeamish overall to break out the big industrial sized drum of blood and gore for their movies and go all “Psycho” with it. Directors Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto wanted to do a shocking film to expand the ideas of their 2007 original 22 min Super 16mm short film “Dara”, and by all appearances they’ve succeed here. They’ve created a nasty violent lil’ film that is, by all standards, the equal of any made anywhere in the genre today. With a bigger budget and a longer run time it’s a weird little gore-fest that plays as very modern and yet also very Indonesian all at the same time.

An old favorite of mine, Julie Estelle of “Kuntilanak”, is back as our heroine Ladya and our story involves an ill fated trip Adjie, her brother and Astrid his expectant wife convince her to take with them on a long drive from Bandung to Jakarta where they plan to fly to Australia and start their new life. There’s some tension here… seems Ladya still blames her brother for the recent death of their parents in a tragic accident. This decision on his part to move to Australia seems like just another of his perceived “betrayals” and it takes some convincing from Astrid to get her to go along with them and their friends, Alam, Eko, and Jimmy.
This was a somewhat hasty set up, story wise…. and it doesn’t give us any insight to the personal dynamics of Ladya and Adjie’s relationship beyond that feeling of distance between them… a bit more back story would have been nice here, especially given the terrible things these two are going to experience later in the film. But hey… you can’t always have everything.

As might be expected… “It’s a dark and stormy night…” and before our lil’ group can get going, they nearly run down a wet, seemingly confused young woman named Maya. Apparently in shock, she tells them she’s been robbed and asks if they’ll give her a lift home. Naturally it’s waaaay out in the woods, but Eko, the driver wants soooo badly to score points with the beautiful and mysterious Maya that he volunteers them all for the trip. Sigh…. Guys, guys, guys…. Must Neko remind you of that old rule that in any horror movie worth it’s name…. it’s never a particularly good idea to do your thinking with your penis…. Yep.This isn’t going to end well for our lil’ group…. not at all.

Maya’s house is home to her eerily strange and absolutely creepy mom, Dara, and two sociopath brothers handsome but coldly odd Adam and quiet, overweight Arman. Just one look at these guys, and your Favorite Catgirl would have been making a beeline for the door, but not these guys. Nope. They agree to stay for dinner….. not knowing our freaky family are all immortal cannibal cultists. D’oh!! You can just sense where this is heading, right?

Thanks to the old plot idea of “drugging the dinner guests”, our little group soon finds themselves all trussed up and helpless…. except for Adjie and Astrid…. seems Dara has other plans for them and their soon-to-be-born child. As if we don’t have enough plot elements already. Unfortunately… we never get any clue as to whether the child will get raised as one of Dara’s “children” or if he’ll merely become some sacrifice to the “Powers of Evil”, or just a tasty nutritional treat for the Cult…. a real pity, as this could have made for a better ending for the film had they been a tad less coy with this promising plot thread.

Instead, our story plays out with our little group getting tied up… till they escape…. frequently split up as they run around in crazed panic…. and, naturally, killed brutally one by one by Dara and her children. It’s not at all original, but it is very well done, suiting the genre conventions we all expect in a film like this. Given that this is an Indonesian film, it’s surprisingly chilling and vicious… with as much bloody mayhem as you would think necessary. Even watching the Singapore edited DVD, I couldn’t help but be struck by the level of violence “Rumah Dara” packs into it’s 94 minute run time.

Overall the acting is good, but I’m sorry to say Julie Estelle wasn’t given much to do as our heroine this time out, being less an empowered woman forced to become a fighter, instead being reduced to more of just an ordinary lucky “survivor”. While I could root for Ladya, I can’t say she felt like a “real” person to me, being much more a stock stereotype character. Instead, our standout performance has to be by Shareefa Daanish as the super creepy Dara….. she’s got an exotic, oddly disturbing edge to her performance that easily let her steal the show in every scene she’s in. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for….. Hopefully when time comes for a sequel, (and you just know there will be…) she’ll be on hand to reprise her role…..

My goodness!! This one really delivers on the promise it made to be one nasty lil’ slice of horror movie goodness. Brutal, yes…. but also campy, bloody, and fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it…. (Yes, yes…. Even if I did have bad dreams all that night….) Your Favorite Catgirl gives it a well deserved 4 “Meows” out of 5 and my definite recommendation that if slashers and cannibals are your thing too, and subtitles don’t worry you, then “Rumah Dara” is certainly worth your time to track down. The Singapore DVD release is edited for content…. but in this case much less so than the official Indonesian DVD release which has all the decapitation and falling head scenes deleted due to their rather graphic nature. The Singapore Theatrical Version and DVD, does contain those scenes that were edited out of the Indonesian version, although any scenes actually showing blades making contact with flesh have been removed, replaced by reaction shots for the second or so of footage that was to be lost to the censor’s knife. Such cuts are minor and trust me… you won’t even notice the difference. The Singapore DVD release is sparse… with only a Trailer and the film itself, but it is done in 16×9 wide screen with excellent separate English subtitles and is readily available for a decent price of about 20$US or so. (Now…. all I have to do is track down the original 2007 short film….. Hehehehe!!)

Trailer? Of course there’s a Trailer…. and naturally, by now, you’re all chomping at the bit for a chance to take a peek…. so here it is!

The synopsis goes sorta like this: “Dr. Lukas Esguerra comes home to his rural hometown and finds that one of the suspects in the brutal murder of his brother and his family was caught by the police and was able to sustain multiple gunshot wounds. But then this suspect is still alive, and apparently cannot die. The police locked up this suspect in the basement section of a hospital, because of the suspect’s involvement in the recent massacre that resulted to the deaths of the family of the police chief. On the evening of Dr. Esguerra’s visit, the sinister and mysterious companions of the suspect has come knocking on the hospital doors and is bent on freeing their companion locked up inside, even if it kills everybody on the way.”

Sounds like this particular one certainly isn’t going to be a sweet romantic comedy…. even though Cristine Reyes is again on hand doing her best to be as cute and adorable a cannibal monster girl as she possibly can. But scary can be good too, and so I’m really lookin’ forward to seeing if the Aswang are as creepy and horrible as all the folklore suggests they are. Well…. only one way to find out…. and that’s to get in there, curl up on the couch with the wine coolers and popcorn and give it a watch, right?

But don’t worry… Your Favorite Catgirl will let you in on all the details… all you have to do Gentle Visitor, is “Read On!!”

Our story starts with a flashback dream sequence….. seems our hero Dr. Lukas (played by Richard Gutierrez) was traumatized as a child by the unexplained horrible massacre of his whole family at the hands of a group of Aswang…. one of whom was his family’s trusted maid and Lucas’s friend, Guada (played by Cristine Reyes)…. or so he thought. Before he can even wonder why the nightmares of that time have returned to haunt him he gets a visit from a policeman from his old home town. Seems… after 20 years… the “killers” of his family have struck again, this time killing and devouring the family of an old childhood friend, now the chief of police. Astoundingly, he is told one of the killers has been captured…. Guada, his family’s maid, still looking as impossibly young and pretty as she did 20 years before. Refusing to answer police questions, she has said she will talk only to Lucas…. and so he is drawn back into the most terrible time of his life… and another brush with the supernatural.

Seems our vengeful police chief Marcus (played by Elvis Gutierrez) has his own reasons for wanting his old friend Lukas to come back home…. You see, he’s been trying to kill Guada since her capture…. over and over and over….. by shooting her, by electrocuting her, even by dousing her in kerosene and barbecuing her…. all to absolutely no effect. Seems the Aswang are immortal and seemingly able to heal any wound…. but there must be some way to kill them, and he’s hoping Lukas can learn that secret from Guada before her husband and the other members of her evil clan come to free her from captivity.

Basically… once Lukas arrives at the rural hospital where Guada is being held in solitary confinement, our story really gets going. It isn’t long before Guada’s husband and the other Aswang trap the police and hospital staff inside the nearly deserted hospital beginning a deadly siege as they try to break Guada out and devour all the humans inside. Despite his horror and revulsion, Lukas come to feel sorry for the winsome Guada, who feels true remorse for the deaths of Lukas’ family all those years ago and only wants to return to the mountains and somehow find the strength to fight her hellish need to feed on humans to survive. Cristine Reyes is getting really good at playing an Aswang…. and it isn’t long before this lil’ Catgirl found herself hoping this would somehow work out for her, although the grim circumstances of the story tell you it probably won’t.

By now, you’ve probably figured out the story here isn’t all that deep or groundbreaking. Most of the stock characters you’d expect in a survival horror are here…. The vengeance driven “Captain Ahab” figure in our police chief Marcus, his loyal (and doomed) deputy, the Head doctor and his loyal nurse, the obligatory sick little girl and her mom trapped with them in the hospital, and enough nameless police and hospital staff to make for a viable body-count once the unstoppable monsters inevitably break in. Is this a bad thing? No…. not really, but I had hoped for a more original approach to this classic old gem of a plot by Philippine director Yam Laranas after his last horror film, 2004′s “Sigaw”. Unfortunately, “Patient X” isn’t in the same league as that one, and I can’t see it inspiring a big budget Hollywood remake like his last film. Not a fatal flaw here, but a disappointment none the less.

Hmmmm? Well how about the monsters themselves? In “Patient X” we get a version of the Aswang quite a bit different from the ones I saw in “Darling Aswang”. Gone is the shape-shifting and flying found in that film, replaced here by a very humanoid creature with super strength, invulnerability, and regenerative powers that comes across as some sort of werewolf crossed with a ghoul. The makeup for them was less than inspired…. although Cristine’s look as the slowly healing, burned wretch painfully being consumed by her overwhelmingly torturous need to feed was certainly effective. Her role was perhaps the best thing in the entire film… at least for me.

Our ending….. Well, it’s not a happy one, that much I can tell you. Eventually Lukas does learn the one weakness of the Aswang from Guada…. you need to behead them you see….  and it’s monster battling fun from that point on. At least the story resists the idea of any sort of “doomed love match” between Lukas and Guada, something which would have rung somewhat wrong overall. It’s a satisfying ending…. but exactly how it turns out this lil’ Catgirl’s not going to spoil for you.

The Philippine DVD is excellent as always, being done wide screen, NTSC All Region format with almost perfect separate English subtitles. There a Trailer on board, and a small “Making of” feature (sadly un-subbed) and is well worth the 15-20$ US you’ll find it priced at most places. Neko can give it a respectable 3 “Meows” out of 5 with a particularly nice purr for Cristine Reyes work here…. as probably the cutest, most sympathetic, cannibalistic corpse-eating girl in all of the Philippines. “Patient X” lacks the gore and effects to make it a breakout worldwide hit, but it’s still not a bad lil’ thriller for an evening’s movie watchin’ fun.

You say you want a Trailer? Well here ya go!

Our synopsis goes like this here: “Tiara (Tamara Bleszynski) wants to get over with her traumatic past and is planning to visit Bride’s Waterfall to release her tension. She invites few of her cousins to join her in this trip. Her boyfriend, Lilo (Kieran Sidhu) and the rest seven people are joining this trip.

Upon arrival the group falls in love with its pristine beach and Tiara is delighted and looking forward to have a good time there. However, their joy does not last very long as few strange incidents occurred in the island. Finally, Lilo reveals that the inhabitants of the island have been massacred by a mysterious person.

Then a mysterious masked man starts to terrorize the island. One by one the trip members are killed with their blood being consumed. What is the motive of the murder? Will Tiara escape for safety from the masked man?”

Oh yeah…. sounds like a slasher film alright… but Neko’s hoping that they went a new direction here and at least tried to put their own mark on the genre…. It’s certainly been a good long time since I saw an original take on that old “teens gone wild, teens get dead” story idea. Will they succeed? Or will this one just remind me of the smell of over-ripe bananas gone waaaay bad?

Let’s all find out! Yep… It’s time to “Read On!!”

Our story gets going as Tiara (played by Tamara Blezynski) and her boyfriend, along with her niece Mandy and some of their friends go off for vacation to Pulau Pengantin, the “Bride Island” to see a famous landmark there, the Bridal Falls, where young lovers often pledge their eternal love before marriage as an old tradition. Unfortunately for them, the island isn’t quite as deserted as it’s supposed to be…. The guidebooks apparently forgot to include the little historical bit about a young man who wanted to marry a pretty village woman, but was denied this when the villagers found out that he was a secretly a shaman. They blocked his marriage and a mob of angry villagers burned his face, killed his bride-to-be and drove him away. In terrible revenge, he systematically hunted down and murdered the entire population of the village with his favorite pointy weapon of choice, a cruel boarding pike-like spear thingee. From that time forward, the now insane shaman has haunted the island killing all foolish enough to come there and plotting to use magic to restore his bride to life. Wow…. you’d think for certain that would be easy enough info for our little group to find before they planned their trip…. but nooooo!!! Wouldn’t have much of a movie then, would we? Hehehehe!!

Anyway…. all that implausible plot goofiness aside… it doesn’t take long for our little group to pack up their stuff and charter a couple of boats to head out to the “Deserted Island of Death”. There’s a little bit of character development…. but not much… as we find out about Tiara’s morbid phobia of being in dark places, the legacy of a car accident that nearly killed her prior to the movie, and the somewhat rocky relationship she has with her boyfriend who seems to be constantly avoiding the subject of marriage. None of this really helps us to get much of a feeling for our characters who all fit the generic cardboard stereotypes you’d expect in your standard Slasher film and that’s a pity…..

I’d sooooo hoped for something a bit more compelling and different from Rizal Mantovani, the director of  “Kuntilanak”, my all time favorite Indonesian horror film as well as the also excellent “Mati Suri”, both of which I’ve reviewed here at the Litterbox and enjoyed immensely. He did an excellent job of making both those films scary and suspenseful while keeping a very “Indonesian” feel to them at the same time. Here, he does only a simple workmanlike job at creating a pale imitation of other genre films that, thanks to Indonesian film censorship ideas, lacks most of the elements necessary to make such an effort work effectively.

He’s assembled a young, attractive cast…. and filled his film with plenty of excuses for pretty Indonesian women to act sexy and show some skin, (Knew you guys would like hearing that…. Remember though, in Indonesia, gratuitous nudity is such a no-no….) but…. there’s no real suspense to the killings that occur and very little real gore on hand here. Not exactly what one expects to find in a “Slasher” film.

Hmmmm? Well… at least Tiara and her boyfriend will finally admit their feelings for each other and be forever bonded by this terrible experience… right? Ummmm? Nope. Don’t want to spoil things for you… but the boyfriend dies pretty quickly here, and without much of a dramatic fight or struggle either. Say what? Yep…. this lil’ Catgirl couldn’t believe that story element either, but there you have it. So…. ah…. this means Tiara gets the chance to go all “Rambo” on our crazy Shaman and take revenge for the death of her friends…. right? Ahhh….. sorry…. the film’s just too short for that… But, she does manage to overcome here fear of the dark…. and that’s something, right?

I wish I could say I truly enjoyed this one, but it barely manages a 3 “Meows” out of 5 as a rating from your Favorite Catgirl. So…. I guess I’m just disappointed overall with “Air Terjun Pengantin” as a “Slasher” film…. it just finds itself too unwilling to go the extra mile to put the “exploit” in “exploitation”. A lack of “blood & boobs” can be forgiven, but one has to be extra creative with the story and cinematography to do it in this genre. Unless Indonesian films are your thing, most people who are true fans of this genre would be advised to pass on this one. However… the DVD itself is excellent, as are most recent Indonesian discs, with almost perfect separate English subtitles on board and at a price that can’t be beat here in the US. That alone gave it the push needed to get that extra crucial “Meow” outta this lil’ girl. (Pssssttt!!! Thailand…. pay attention here!! Hehehehe!!)

Ah well…. I’ve got a ton of new Indonesian horror still to watch, so who knows? Maybe one of them will restore my faith in all things scary and Indonesian… Till then, it’s “Meow, meow for now!!”

The Trailer? Yep… as always, Neko’s got ya covered!! Here we go!

Well, actually I’ve got “Mutants”, on the UK Region 2 DVD release of the French horror goodie just chock full of virus infested homicidal cannibal zombies… Errrrr, I mean mutants… I think. Whatever…. they look like zombies… they eat people just like zombies…. so if it quacks like a duck then, well… you know the rest.

Our synopsis goes like this: “In a world devastated by a pandemic virus that horribly transmutes human beings into primitive and bloodthirsty creatures, the last hope for survivors is the military station ‘Noe’ where scientists are researching the cure. Marco (Francis Renaud) and Sonia (Hélène De Fougerolles) set off to find the secret base to escape from the ‘mutants’. When they are attacked, Marco becomes contaminated and little by little begins to undergo the same changes as the other creatures. Sonia, pregnant with their first child, must somehow fight off the hordes and force herself to fight the man she once loved.”

Hmmmm? Sounds like a winner… but do the French know what to do with zombies? I certainly hope so, especially given the immanent arrival of another French zombie film “Le Horde”…. and you know I’m just gonna have to get that one too. (I’m just such a hopeless lil’ zombie loving doofus!!!)

You Gentle Visitors can, of course, can find out all the grisly details for yourselfs by just taking Neko’s subtle hint and continuing to “Read On!”….

After our last little foray into the bleak landscape of “Zombie Apocalypse” that overwhelmed the exotic faraway land of Turkey, my sweet Carolyn thought she was safe from another evening of fresh munching zombies for a while. (Tsk! Tsk!! What a foolish, foolish notion!!) At least she did until my latest package from Amazon.UK arrived with all the newest UK Region 2 releases, including this particular French horror goodie. Luckily… the idea of cuddling up with me for an evening on the couch (and the possibility of maybe just a wee bit of sweet canoodling) was just far toooo tempting for her to resist… zombies or not. So how did it go? Well…. the cuddling was certainly fun….. Oh, yes!! And the zombies… errr.. ahhh…. mutants… were pretty good too! Hehehehe!!

This one wastes no time getting right to things, story wise…. we start out with a confused grisly attack by the mutants on some poor group of survivors… as a badly injured woman makes her staggering getaway while the beasties chow down on her less fortunate companions. After a stumbling chase through the forest, she breaks out onto a deserted highway….. just in time to be splattered into gooey cherry jello all over the front of a speeding ambulance! Ouch!!

This ambulance, with EMT’s Sonia and Marco on board is fleeing some earlier confrontation with a pack of these nasty critters… along with two heavily armed police SWAT types, one of whom Sonia feverishly works on in the back while his nervous female partner menacingly threatens the paramedics with her sub-machine gun. Turns out her partners all covered with bites…. so it’s stop the ambulance time for our heroes while she puts several bullets in his head….. You get the idea she’d like to do the same to our blood covered (and probably contaminated) medics…. but she obviously needs them for now and there will be plenty of time for that sort of nastiness later. First she needs them to get her safely out of the Contaminated Zone and safely to the secret Military base at “Noe”….

Eventually, our group runs low on gas… necessitating a stop at a nearly destroyed station somewhere up in the mountains and an unfortunate encounter with a contaminated traumatized survivor leaves Marco wounded. Bitten by the survivor and shot by the SWAT officer, he’s in pretty sad shape once Sonia deals with their trigger happy cop….. permanently. Dragging him to the ambulance, the sound of an approaching pack of mutants convinces her it’s time to split… gas or no gas. Luckily for her…. she runs across a deserted complex waaaay up in the mountains before the ambulance conks out.

Just what this place is, we never learn…. it looks sort of like a big hospital or sanitarium…. with all these labyrinthine corridors, it’s own cafeteria, power generator, and even some sort of clinic set up. With Marco patched up as best she can, she radios the Military base for evacuation… lying to them about the two of them being uncontaminated… but getting no answer, despite the helicopters she hears flying back and forth overhead. Much of the rest of our film takes place here… first as Sonia grapples with the obvious viral changes occurring in the man she loves…. and then her struggles against the gang of motley raiders that show up having heard her distress call on their own radio. Luckily for her… by then, unable to kill him, Sonia has locked Marco away unknown to these vicious raiders.

These guys are your typical post apocalyptic thugs… scavengers, murderers, and thieves, and they want everything Sonia has… especially the keys to the ambulance. Why their leader Frank doesn’t just rape and kill her right away was surprising to me and Carolyn…. he certainly had that nasty vibe going on… but instead he and the others content themselves with using the sprawling complex as shelter while Sonia does her medic thing on one of their wounded men.

Naturally it isn’t long before they find out Sonia is naturally immune to the virus…. having been bitten weeks before, yet showing no ill effects. Also no surprise is the inevitable clash between Sonia, Frank and his men, and the roving mutants that eventually find their way to the complex as well. To further complicate things… Marco finishes his painful transformation into mutant killer, escaping just in time to join the fun.

Will Sonia escape alive? Will she find the courage to kill the man she loves, even if he is the father of her unborn child? Will the darn French Army ever get around to showing up to shoot up some mutants? Not to worry… they do get around to all that, and do it all in suitably timely fashion.

So… all in all, how did this one stack up? As a “Zombie Movie without Zombies”, this lil’ Catgirl thinks it did just fine. The “Mutants” of the title are suitably nasty things and stand in nicely for adversaries here…. and while not particularly original looking or done with startling make up effects, worked well. Our characters are simple…. mostly the usual stereotypes you expect in one of these movies. Not particularly original, but not embarrassingly bad either. Our Heroine Sonia is engaging and believable… both Neko and Carolyn were rooting for her to beat the odds and make it through this all alive…. (Although… we half expected her to survive the film only to be eaten alive from within by a Mutant Baby at the very end… somehow though, the filmmakers resisted the urge for that sort of unneeded twist ending….)

The UK Region 2 DVD is spartan…. Only a Trailer and the film itself, but it is presented with nice accurate separate English subtitles on a Letterboxed wide screen format. Neko can easily give this on a respectable 3 “Meows” out of 5 with one or two nice contented purrs for Hélène De Fougerolles’ spunky portrayal of Sonia and all the other good solid supporting performances. Good, strong heroines always work for this girl and this was no exception. With a nice film like this… Neko thinks this could mean her Luck will bode well when “Le Horde” finally lurches it’s Zombie butt to DVD. The French? Apparently they aren’t just all about Mimes and Flaky Croissants!! Hehehe!!

Trailer? Yep…. isn’t there always a Trailer? Of course there is… and here it goes, all chock full of zombie… ummmm?…. I mean mutant… action!!

What’s so darn compellingly universal about them? Seems that they manage to lurch their way into the most unexpected places…. this time out it’s the exotic land of Turkey suffering the ravages of the “Zombie Apocalypse” in the new DVD release “Ada Zombilerin Düğünü” or, as I’ve been told it translates: “The Island: Wedding of the Zombies”. This one sorta snuck up on your Favorite Movie Lovin’ Catgirl and I only recently caught wind of it during one of my quests through the Internet in search of yet another Turkish horror delight. That one managed to escape me… but I was rewarded by encountering this bit of Zombie horror goodness. One quick search later found me a copy and now it’s mine to watch and review or all of you here at the ol’ Litterbox.

Synopsis? Well… I can give you this one, translated and cleaned up a bit from the Turkish original: “Erhan, together with five long time friends, is off to the island of Büyükada’ya to attend the wedding of a distant acquaintance. To commemorate the event, he can record their happy moments with a video camera he brought along on the trip. Viewed throughout the entire film, this camera captures the horrors that unfold in a most personal fashion. All seems normal at first, yet later the wedding guests become the victims of an unexpected zombie attack, and the whole scene turns into a horrifying lake of blood.”

Looks to this lil’ Catgirl like some sort of cross between “Cloverfield” and “Blair Witch” with more than a little “Diary of the Dead” thrown in for good measure. Still…. I don’t get many Turkish Zombies in my neck of the woods, so I’m not about to turn down a chance to munch my popcorn, cuddle with my sweetie, and get my zombie movie fix, Turkish style.

Wanna know if it’s worth a look-see for yourself? Then by all means, you’d better “Read On”!

Zombies have always been the favorite fodder of every low budget horror movie maker…. and even the granddaddy of them all, “Night of the Living Dead”, owes much of it’s gritty cult phenomenon success to the nearly worldwide adoption of the Zombie into the cultural folklore of practically every country on Earth. So…. is it at all surprising to find them lurching about the landscape of Turkey? Not really… but the question remains if the Turks know what to do with this venerable horror genre.

“Ada Zombilerin Düğünü” gets it’s start in Istanbul, as our protagonists drive across town to catch the ferry to Büyükada’ya, a tourist-y sort of getaway where they are going to party it up at a wedding and reception for some distant acquaintance…. just who is never really explained… We don’t even know how our heroes got their invites or anything, it’s all sort of vague and not truly central to the plot, so we’ll let that slide. One of our characters, Erhan, comes equipped with a video camera to document the trip, and it’s from his point of view that we see the story as it unfolds…. Sound familiar? It should…. and it’s all been done before in such other horror offerings from “The Blair Witch”, through “Cloverfield” and even to Romero’s own “Diary of the Dead”. Used here, the “shaky cam” antics allow our low budget film makers to hide much of the primitive gore effects and zombie makeups withing the crazy out of focus, hard to see shots used throughout.

Where Romero’s “Diary” tried to use this style to achieve a gritty realism while exploring the societal dynamics of the modern world disintegrating under the macabre disaster unfolding before the character’s eyes, “Ada” has a much less lofty approach and merely fills it’s story with the very personal interplay between a few stock character archetypes caught up in the events portrayed. There’s Erhan, of course, whom we rarely see throughout the film not surprisingly, given that he’s always manning the trusty video camera…. that appears to be his only role here in the story and his part could be done by… well… just about any interchangeable person in the cast…. and he makes no impression upon the viewer at all. (Not even getting credited at the film’s end credits!). There’s the token yuppie couple, Ekin and Deniz (played by Gülüm Baltacigil and Kaan Keskin respectively) waiting to take the plunge and get married themselves, all the while sniping and fighting with one another over stupid things. Aloof and cynical Murat (played by Ozan Ayhan), openly critical of his friends and still smarting from the breakup he just had with his girlfriend Gamze (played by Esra Rusan)…. who just has to show up at the wedding too just to complicate things. Ah…. and last but not least, cheapskate hanger-on Omer with a hangup over one of Ekin’s girl friends Betul (played by Canan Güven). You know the sort of hang-up we’re talking about here…. the creepy awkward “stalker” kind of hang-up. Yep… that’s our little group in a nutshell.

The zombie action unfolds much as one might expect… there are small things to give the smart ones some warning, like the ambulance that is hauling a stricken zombifying victim off a ferry just as our little group arrives at the port for their own trip to the island. Do they take the hint that this might not just be the fun place to go? Nope…. but then nobody ever takes these hints in a movie like this do they? The wedding goes off as expected, the bride and groom exchanging vows, collecting all the gifts and the dancing and partying going pretty much as one might expect…. until the first wave of flesh eating corpses crash the scene.

Although this is where the action truly begins, there’s nothing particularly novel or unique about it. We get the usual mindless running in terror…. confused shots by the hand held camera which don’t let you see all that much, and the obligatory bit where our little group gets all split up in the resulting chaos. We get to see some policemen overrun by zombies and eaten… lots of party guests being gnawed on by small clumps of cannibal zombies… and naturally after some running and hiding some time for our group to get back to the silly interpersonal arguing they were up to before the world descended into the “Zombie Apocalypse”. All the standard rules are obeyed: get bitten by a Zombie and you’ll soon become one, kill the living dead by shooting or smashing them upside the head, and it’s everybody for themselves… don’t expect help from “the Authorities”.

Basically…. that’s the major flaw of “Ada Zombilerin Düğünü”… it respects the “rules” of zombie cinema but doesn’t really put it’s own “Turkish” stamp on things. Other odd lil’ zombie films from other parts of the world all manage to do just that…. Greece’s “To Kako” for instance, or Pakistan’s “Hell’s Ground” really took the zombie and gave it back to us through their own particular cultural interpretation filter… making them somehow new and different, while still letting us recognize the source material…. the “Zombie” itself. Sadly… that’s not the case here.

So…. although this one does try like a trooper to deliver the goods, and comes from what seems to be an enthusiastic bunch of film-makers in love with the genre, Neko can really only give “Ada” a barely deserved 3 “Meows” out of 5. It’s a nice try… but discerning zombie fans would want something more original and with a bit more meat on it’s bones to truly get excited. The Turkish DVD is nicely done… in All Region PAL wide-screen format, but with the most weirdly done spotty English Subtitles this lil’ Catgirl has ever seen. They are accurate enough to allow watching the film, but come with lots of simple omissions in which whole sections of dialog are simply not translated at all… leaving one scratching your head going.. “Huh? What did he say?”But… at about 12-15$ US, the price is nice, and if you are a true Zombie fan, like me, you’ll probably want a copy for yourself…. if for no other reason than to say you’ve seen Turkey’s first ever Zombie movie.

Trailer? You betcha! Here you are… fresh from Turkey!