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!

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!

Our quick synopsis goes like this: “A young gentleman called Putra (played by Restu Sinaga) marries Amira (played by Indah Kalalo) and would like to give the best honeymoon experience for his wife in his privately owned island. However, strange ghostly incidents are haunting them as a newly wed couple.

From an exotic bedroom to a swimming pool filled with excitement to their romantic bathroom and in every corner of the island, a female ghost dressed in a wedding gown is seeking blood debt from the couple.

A dark secret is waiting to be revealed, changing their romantic night into a scary encounter with the ghost. Who is the ghost and why is she terrorizing them?”

Yep…. this sounds pretty much like your standard Indonesian horror effort. It’s been a while since one really wowed me…. is this one gonna be one of those amazing hidden gems your Favorite Cargirl occasionally encounters? Maybe yes…. maybe no. Am I still gonna watch the goofy thing? Yeah….

Guess you’ll just have to stick with me and see how this one stacks up. (C’mon!!…. it’s not like you don’t wanna!! Neko knows you all too well. Hehehehe!!)

So surrender to your secret needs and “Read On”!!

Alrighty then…. This one starts out promisingly enough. A dark and stormy night…. a honeymoon couple enjoying a sexy romantic interlude by candlelight. What could possibly go wrong here? Well… this is an Indonesian ghost story after all….. so, of course, just about everything. After the sweaty intimacies, our happy bride lingers in bed toying with her necklace, obviously a token of love from her dear husband. Hubby, meanwhile, goes off to the bathroom and then only a panicked scream and the sound of breaking glass later, our poor girl is off running for her life clad only in a silky sheet, pursued by an terrible unknown something through the rain until finally it catches her and causes her to fall into a muddy pit to her death, impaled upon a big ol’ stake….. Ouch!!

There you go. Simple and to the point. If only the rest of our movie followed this formula…. Instead, unfortunately, much of this film’s short run time is taken up with a superfluous comedy subplot filler to at least let it be 70 minutes long or so. Worse even… the subplot is… well…. downright repulsive to boot. But more on that in a moment…..

First off we meet newlyweds Amira and her rich husband Putra on his speedboat off for a romantic honeymoon getaway to his private island. Yep… the same island where we just witnessed that horrible opening scene. They are both wealthy… attractive… and seemingly perfect for one another in both a personal as well as business fashion. Their two companies are on the verge of a merger… just as soon as the honeymoon is over and it’s back to business and the real world for them both. For now… it’s time for fun in the sun and all the naughty bedroom fun they can cram into their holiday. Everything seems perfect.. right? Well… it’s still a horror movie… don’t forget that.

Once there, we get introduced to Putra’s household staff…. his tough, capable right hand man Yogi, his shy and suspiciously scared looking son, and the two slimy guys I mentioned earlier… his cook and head of security. These two waste much of the next 40 minutes or so in a prolonged contest to see which of them will be able to peep on their boss’s sexy new wife and masturbate. Yep…. sometimes both at the same time… sometimes all by themselves with a stolen picture of her in a bikini…. Ewwwwhhh!!! The first time is merely annoying… but the constant repeat of this idea become pretty sickening…. Thank goodness the ghost shows up and kills them both around the end of the first hour. (After that, either Carolyn or I would probably have begged for the chance to waste them ourselves.) I’m not really a prude or anything, but I found this subplot fairly tasteless and especially surprising given the ridiculous “Mosaic blurring” done to obscure slightly risky bits on near nudity at times throughout the film. It struck both of us as odd that blunt humor about two repulsive guys masturbating constantly would be allowed, while the view of a woman’s nipples barely seen through wet cloth for a split second or so would be troublesome. But I guess that’s Indonesian sensibilities for you…..

All that filler leaves very little time for the actual plot to get going. Eventually we learn that the woman we saw in the beginning was Putra’s first wife Lydia… and that she died tragically on their honeymoon after the ghost of her grandmother attacked them for reasons unknown. Amira spends her time dodging the wedding dress-wearing spirit as well…. is it angry with her for marrying Putra? Or is their some other problem yet to be revealed? Is it the Grandmother…. or is it Lydia herself?

With less than 20 minutes of film to go, they can’t really waste a lot of time on character development or plot, so lets just say that the spirit isn’t out to hurt Amira… far from it. The ghost of poor Lydia is actually trying it’s best to protect her… first from those two bozos….. and then from her dear devoted husband. Yep, this one turns out to be one of those movies where the evil husband marries then kills his new bride all to steal her wealth for himself. He did it with Lydia, and now he’s out to increase his holdings by absorbing Amira’s company and then letting her “disappear” like his poor first wife.

Eventually we get a repeat of the beginning sequence… but this time, thanks to the intervention of the shy young son of evil manservant Yogi and the angry spirit of Lydia, it’s ends up being Putra who ultimately ends up on the wrong end of the pointy stake. Good riddance!!

So… how do I rate this one? Well… Indah Kalalo does a decent job as our heroine. She’s pretty, vulnerable, and believable as Amira with good chemistry with her leading man. The story itself is nothing special…. having the feel of an old english gothic novel….. but that whole repulsive comedy subplot just about sinks this one for me. Maybe it’s just because I’m a woman, but I was really turned off by the whole thing. It might have been meant to be risque and funny but it fails miserably. Let’s have more potty jokes next time…. those are soooo much better.

Neko can only give this one 2 pathetic “Meows” out of 5….. It’s just not a good film, and is dragged waaay down by that subplot. Hopefully I’ll have better luck next time an Indonesian film slips into the ol’ DVD player….. At least I can hope so…

Trailer? Naturally there’s a Trailer… and as always I leave you with a quick look for yourselves!!

Synopsis? Yeah… we got one, and it goes somethin’ like this: “Three corpse hunters Sukun (Edi Brokoli), Obeng (Rizky Mocil) and Odjie (Hardi Fadhilah) have been assigned to search for a kuntilanak that has been reincarnated following the removal of a nail on its head by their superior, Pak Joko (Kiwil).

Pak Joko has been pressurized by his mother to get married in his increasingly old age. He tries to woo his secretary Mona (Chinthyara Alona) but got rejected by her. One day a beautiful lady called Kunti (Dewi Perssik) appears and she is actually the corpse that the hunters have been searching for.

Pak Joko falls in love with her beauty and decides to marry her. The hunters and his secretary try to convince Pak Joko that Kunti is a reincarnated kuntilanak that is seeking revenge against people who have hurted her in the past. Will Pak Joko succeeds in marrying Kunti?”

Sigh…. Dewi Perssik… and that goofy bunch of comedians from “Setan Budeg”… am I really ready to sit through this? Even if it does have a version of the kuntilanak in it? Grrrr!! Alright…alright!! I’ll do it… but only because I like trashy movies sooo darn much!! (Please.. gentle visitors, pray for me!!)

Luckily… the rest of you can simply “Read On” and get the jist of this one without risking the actual viewing of what I’m almost certain will redefine terrible movie entertainment.

Sigh…. so why in heck am I even watching this one? Carolyn tells me that films like this might just indicate that I have a problem…. A terrible incurable addiction to bad.. bad… BAD movies from far away lands. Worse… there’s just no “12 step program” or support group to fix it!! That could be the only explanation for my having bought this one… even for 5$… but then I can never resist these goofy things!! Waaaaahhhh!!!

This one starts off promisingly, if a bit weirdly, as the ghostly kuntilanak wanders the streets of Jakarta until shockingly being struck by a car. It smashes into her like she was the “Terminator” or something…. wrapping around her like tinfoil and barely slowing her down on the way to the house of a seemingly happy couple, Sally and Okta (played by Heather Storm and Keith Foo) to do the old “revenge from beyond the grave” thingee on them. She slips into the house…. right after the perquisite sexy scene that just makes all the censors in Indonesia have fits…. and then starts trying reeeeaaally hard to kill Sally and Okta before being subdued by a handy spiritualist who just happened to be on guard outside the house with his trusty magic rope, a mallet…. and a big ol’ iron spike!!

While much of this movie is pretty dumb, the folklore stuff is always neat. I haven’t seen the old “spike in the noggin’” thing since the old Shaw Brothers film “Black Magic 2″. This time out, it doesn’t let you control the dead… nope, just weakens them and steals their supernatural mojo so you can dispose of them properly. Apparently… and I would never have guessed this in a million years… the proper mode of disposal for the kuntilanak is to bundle them up in an old suitcase… tie it shut with the magic rope… and then throw them in the river. Ummm?… Errr?… Yeah… that ought to work…. not.

Then we jump to our favorite group of idiotic corpse collectors… you remember them from “Setan Budeg”…. Sukun (Edi Brokoli), Obeng (Rizky Mocil) and Odjie (Hardi Fadhilah). We get some more silly stuff as they go about their job, frustrate their boss Joko daily with their antics, and lust after the sexy receptionist Mona. Yeah, yeah, yeah…. same old stuff…. and it was pretty old and lame the last time. Things get spiced up a bit though when Joko… depressed over his lack of success with the ladies decides to commit suicide. He jumps in the river in a lame attempt to end it all but is saved when the suitcase containing Dewi floats on by and takes him to shore. Naturally he opens the case, Dewi escapes and starts on a quest to find a way to remove the iron spike from her head so she can get revenge on those responsible for her condition.

Somehow that involves her seeking Joko out and in the guise of a sexy young woman named Kunti looking for a husband, woos him and ends up betrothed to him. For some silly reason.. he never recognizes her as the corpse from the suitcase, and ends up removing the iron spike by accident. Her ghostly powers completely restored, first she  kills the spiritualist who imprisoned her… then goes after Sally and Okta again every night as Joko sleeps completely unaware of his new fiance’s need to drink blood, eat placentas, and generally slaughter folk.

I can’t believe I’m saying this.. but Dewi is probably the best thing in this entire movie!! Unlike the last couple films she’s done, she actually spends quite a bit of screen time in this one, and her portrayal of the Kuntilanak actually works for the most part. They let the Kuntilanak be sort of a cross between a banshee and a vampire with a lot of neat flying and transforming from corpse to ghost and so on. Not only that… but she’s downright weird as the character of Kunti. Only someone as stupid… or as desperate.. as Joko would ever mistake Kunti as a human woman, she’s just toooo creepy in her incessant need to feed her beloved. While she’ll never win an Oscar for this performance, it suits the material well.

Of course… we all know what the Indonesian audience seems to want from Dewi, and she does perform a bit of “fan service” in the quickie flashback sequence that reveals Okta as her husband who drowned her in a soapy bathtub to make room for his new love, sexy blond Sally…. But, although there was some controversy in Indonesia about this, she actually shows far less skin than in any previous film she’s done. All that sort of titillating action is reserved for  American import, Heather Storm… who seems really to be in this film merely to perform all the naughty bits an Indonesian actress wouldn’t dare do….

All in all… this one also has a lot a problems editing wise. It has a very uneven look to it, as if they were trying to cobble together two different films into one. I can see places where the over zealous knife of the censor also had it’s way with things…. so much so that the film ends up very choppy and abrupt at times. Even the ending seems somewhat rushed and presumptuous, as if they just ran out of steam at the last moment.

Nope… I can’t say this one’s going to be remembered long after we’re all dead and gone to that big movie theater in the sky. Despite Dewi finally rising to the challenge and giving it her all, I’m afraid Neko can only give this one 2 “Meows” out of 5 for just not being all that good. I’m thinking Miss Perssik needs to look for something better than these forgettable “fly-by-night” matinee specials if she wants to be a star. She’s certainly attractive enough, and maybe with some work she could do it, but she’s got to find a classier vehicle to show us what she’s truly capable of. As for the adventures of our goofy “ghost busting” corpse hunters? Let’s just say that horse has officially been ridden to death…. Can we just try something new next time out, huh guys? (Gosh…. I soooo need a good scary Thai movie to wash this one out of my brain!!)

Trailer? Oh, yes gentle visitors…. Neko’s got one for you. Why should I be the only one to suffer? Hehehehe!!

Our synopsis goes: “The life of a successful sculptor (played by Fachri Albar) is turned upside down when he begins receiving mysterious messages from somebody who’s asking for his help.

When he stumbles upon an illegal TV broadcast which offers snuff, he finds out that the person who’s trying to reach him is a 7 year-old boy who has been kept and abused by a vicious couple. As he digs more, he discovers that his wife (played by Marsha Timothy) just might be connected to the whole mystery. Soon he has to decide whether or not to abandon his search and leave the boy to die or to lose everything and everyone he knows.”

This one is definitely strange…. and that’s something coming from this movie lovin’ girl…. Given my tastes in movies, I’ve certainly seen some strange films over the years, but very few that take the idea of such deliberate quirkiness and make it their own.

So what’s the story on this one? Well… by now you know it’s time to “Read On”… so let’s get to it!!

If you’ve been lucky enough to encounter director Joko Anwar’s earlier film, “Kala”, then you already know he has a very unique vision that he imbues his films with….. Just when you think you are watching one type of film he often changes gears on you… takes his film in an entirely different direction and then ends up someplace odd and nowhere where you thought it might go. His films share an equal measure of the gritty feeling of old film-noir films with elements of the sort of suspense and plot bits of classic Hitchcock movies bundled together with some of the downright weird imagery of David Lynch and a little of the psychological notions of David Cronenberg’s work. Wrap it all in with a soundtrack dominated by cool 50′s style jazz and a very distinctly Indonesian feeling story and you got one very different sort of movie….. Oh yes, indeed…

We start this one out by getting a quick introduction to the main character Gambir (played by Fachri Albar), a successful sculptor whose recent series of works featuring pregnant women has become all the rage in the local art scene. He’s seemingly got it all…. a successful career, his sexy, super smart, yet loving wife Talyda (played by Marsha Timothy), and is the envy of all his close friends and acquaintances. What more could a man want from life? But…. first appearances can be deceiving…. and therein lies our story.

Gambir, you see, is being haunted….. both by a secret guilt about the secret abortion of he and Talyda’s first baby, and by a strange recurring message that seems meant especially for him and that  follows him everywhere…. “Help Me!!”…. Are these things really connected? Well…. it seems Gambir and Talyda made the big mistake of getting intimate a wee bit too early in their relationship, and no quick marriage would ever fool anyone into believing they hadn’t had sex before marriage….. and we all know how much that’s a no-no in Indonesia…. Sure it was easy to arrange a secret abortion, but Talyda loses it and the only way for Gambir to calm her down is to promise to hide the fetus inside one of his statues. Naturally, doing that somehow makes the statue soooo much better so pretty soon Gambir is forced to buy more aborted babies from the clinic to fill all his statues and give them that certain “something” too…… Ewwwwhhh!!! Yep, it’s a pretty gross notion, and this had me thinking we were headed for the Indonesian equivalent of the “pontinak” legend going on here. You know…. where keeping the ghosts of unborn children brings good luck and wealth to the person who controls them…. (Nope, that’s certainly a neat idea, but that’s just toooo easy for this film…. and I wasted a lot of time on this idea while things got even stranger…)

The messages…. they beg… they plead…. and poor Gambir finds them absolutely everywhere…. Couple this with the stress of keeping his mom at bay while she constantly plots and schemes to find some way for him and Talyda to finally overcome “his” little problem and have a child…. Grrrr!!! So annoying!! If only he could tell her it’s actually the result of the abortion, but nope… Gambir can’t do that of course…. Sigh. Then the film throws yet another weird curve at us. He decides that the whole business of making the same statues over and over…. and the loathsome secret within each and every one of them is just too much to bear any longer. He tells his “friend” and owner of the gallery that sells his stuff that his new show will go an entirely different direction only to have “Uncle” Jimmy tell him he accidentally broke one of the statues…. and he knows the secret too. Worse… he makes a thinly veiled threat to expose Gambir unless he keeps right on making those statues…. and keeps making him the money they bring in. Think that’s bad enough? Then it gets worse….

While working in his basement studio, a tool he throws away in anger rolls under a cabinet and when he moves it, he finds a strange door…. completely unknown to him and locked with a formidable padlock. How could such a thing exist in a brand new house built especially for him by his wife’s father? More importantly…. what does it hide? Before he can break in and find out, Talyda arrives…. begging him never to open that door or ask her what she has locked away inside. He’s confused and a bit frightened, but he loves her and ultimately agrees to never open the door or ever ask her about it again….. so long as she lives. Now you know this can’t be good……

As if poor Gambir doesn’t have enough misery on his plate to deal with… the pleading messages continue. Eventually they lead him to a mysterious club somewhere in a wealthy section of Jakarta that Gambir figures is the front for the human trafficking ring that must have snatched the boy he keeps seeing in his hallucinations and dreams. He can’t get in… until he finds out his best friend is a secret member of the club, and after beating his friend up a bit gets him to sponsor Gambir for membership…. He then discovers the club itself is actually a place where the bored and the wealthy can sate their sick, voyeuristic need to see the underside of life by watching secret cameras hidden about the city. Hidden everywhere, they show everything from deviant sex, prison rape, an insane woman who spends her days sewing her hand to a blanket, and finally….. a young boy who is slowly being beaten to death by his mother and father in a seedy apartment. It’s the boy who Gambir knows has been sending those messages…. and he grows more and more frantically desperate to find him and save him before it’s too late.

But before you think that’s all this one has to throw at us… it’s time for me to give you my “SPOILER ALERT”…. ’cause this one is still got some crazy stuff coming, and trust me, you might definitely want to see it for yourself.

The story spirals down and down….. and just when you think Gambir is going to redeem himself and save the boy…. well…. ummm… he doesn’t. Nope…. instead he gets to watch the TV at the club helplessly as the boy finally cracks and takes a big ol’ kitchen knife one night to slit the throats of both his tormentors and then to himself in a single act of self destructive misery in the face of a seemingly uncaring world. So that’s it….. right? Wrong.

While weeping and broken over the boys death, Gambir sees the program on the floor, listing all the channels available to members at the club, and to his horror, one of those channels has his wife name listed!! Almost in shock he can’t not turn to that channel…. only to see his very own house and his mother and wife discussing how Talyda is going to have to seduce both his best friends if she’s ever going to conceive a child….. and then the footage of both those illicit adulteries. Gambir snaps….. and then goes cold as he decides to end his pain in the only way possible left to him.

So he plans a festive Christmas dinner….. for himself and Talyda, his mother, “Uncle Jimmy” and both his “dear” friends….. a dinner they’ll never…. ever… forget. Add a revolver…. a big ol’ carving knife, and enough paralytic poison to keep all his victims awake but unable to move a muscle and Gambir is set to finally dish out some just deserts to his loved ones. We get enough gooey arterial spray to fill two Indonesian films here….. and then, lest we forget…. we get to see what’s hidden in back of that door in the basement…..

Time for one last crazy shift…… seems that the door is to that seedy apartment, where the little boy and his parents lie dead in pools of blood. Say what?? Not only that…. but the boy’s mother, whose face has always been conveniently just out of frame throughout…. is that of his very own mother!!! Huh?!? The world spinning insanely around him, Gambir is finally revealed to be locked within the padded room of an asylum….. having been that very same little boy who murdered his parents as a child, and who has been trapped within the hell of his own mind ever since…. All the characters are just people from the asylum….. warped and trapped in the same hallucinations that constantly run again and again through his shattered psyche. Or….. has he? A final scene shows a man entering a church to give confession…. he’s killed his wife you see…. and the priest that takes that confession? Why it’s Gambir…. who sends the man home with the stern warning never to open the “secret door”…….

Hmmmm…. yep, now this one certainly kept me guessing…. and it’s filled with lots and lots of things that just keep percolating through your head. Neko liked this one…. and for an Indonesian film, it’s most certainly a class act, with good acting, excellent cinematography, script and direction. The Indonesian “Special Edition DVD” comes with lots of extras on board and has excellent English subtitles as well. So….. if quirky films are your thing, and you like something that’s going to stay with you long after the credits have rolled, then “Pintu Terlarang” might just be for you. I give this one a well deserved 4 “Meows” out of 5…. with plenty of purrs of contentment for the odd little touches here and there throughout and the downright unique style it possesses. If you haven’t seen this one yet…. go for it. (Psssst!! If you reeeaally like it…. then by all means go ahead and hunt down a copy of “Kala” as well….. you won’t be sorry!)

Yep… we’ve got a Trailer… and here it is!

Our synopsis reads: “Ivan (Ashraf Siclair) and Rini (Nubila Syakieb) have a beautiful child, Laura. After so much time without a house of thier own, finally Ivan has bought a small bungalow out in the forest. But from the first time they step foot in the house, Laura is afraid and feels there is something wrong with the place. Rini presumes than Laura just doesn’t like the lonely house and doesn’t want to live there. Ivan feels Laura just needs some time to adapt to living there. Then a mysterious cat is been found by Laura. With the arrival of this cat, Laura feels more comfortable and forgets her initial fears. One day while sleeping, Laura always hears a song never sang by her mother, Rini. Laura sings this song to Rini for next morning. Rini starts to believe there is something strange happening with Laura. Rini becomes very afraid and becomes upset with Ivan who has hidden the house’s tragic past. He doesn’t believe in bad luck or ghosts, and dismisses her fears as foolish. Laura gets lost on afternoon under wierd circumstances. Rini believes the loss of Laura was caused by supernatural; forces, but Ivan beleives Laura has been kidnapped. Ivan goes to report to police. After Ivan goes, Rini calls in a Paranormal to help find Laura. However the Paranormal is too weak to battle against the evil spirit that haunts the house…. What can be done to save Laura from, “The Real Pocong”?”

Yep…. creepy ghosts just seem to haunt Indonesia everywhere. And…. from this lil’ Catgirl’s perspective, that’s a good, good, thing!! It means oodles and oodles of ghost stories for lil’ ol’ me to enjoy, and plenty of opportunities to tell you all about them… so by all means, Gentle Visitors, it’s time to “Read On” !

Indonesian horror films just absolutely love the pocong…. and that enduring image of a corpse all tied up in it’s burial shroud is probably the most recognizable fixture of the entire Indonesian horror scene. Personally, your Favorite Catgirl Princess has never quite grasped what was all all that scary about the pocong…. it usually just sort of floats around in these films annoying folk and stinking the place up pretty badly, but occasionally, they let it actually do some fairly nasty stuff. Here in this film, for example…. it has the job of kidnapping children using illusion and magic to steal them away to the Spirit World. Now that’s a pretty frightening notion alright…. kinda like the bogeyman of our folklore or that monster from under our beds which all kids know just wants to drag us under there too…. never to return.

Also… unlike many of the more recent Indonesian films I’ve seen, this one doesn’t try to dilute it’s story with some lame comedy subplot to fill out the running time….. no sir, it’s pure horror here in “The Real Pocong”, and I, for one, was sooooo glad to have that for a change. Our story follows the plight of a young married couple Ivan and Rini who finally have managed to save up the money after years of struggling to be able to buy their own home…. every young couple’s dream, whether in Indonesia or anywhere in the world. Sure it’s tiny… sure it’s located waaaay out in the boondocks with practically no neighbors, but it’s all theirs, darn it…. and that’s what should count, right? Well… you’d think so, but somehow all those inexpensive bargain bungalows have their problems…. leaky roofs, cellars that flood in the spring, drafty bedrooms…. or, like this lil’ place, they could be haunted.

Rini doesn’t know that of course…. and hubby Ivan is too modern a guy to take such folklore seriously…. so you just know it’s gonna come back and bite them in the butt. Unfortunately, this wicked ghost has a need to steal away kids…. just like collecting stamps, but ever so much more fun, I guess. Seems this one is the spirit of the wife of a former owner…. raped and humiliated by robbers one night before her husband’s eyes she later kills herself out of shame, but not before poisoning her own daughter…. why I’m not exactly certain, but hey…. crazy doesn’t need a reason right? Even worse…. our happy couple have themselves a daughter too…. and she’s ever so cute, so you just know that ghost is gonna want to snatch her away too.

Laura (played by super cute lil’ Sakinah Dava Erawan) is downright adorable…. and she just made Neko’s heart melt as she became the main victim of the hauntings centered around the house. The pocong keeps trying to lure her away from her mom…. using her desire for a pet… a sweet little kitten, as the honeyed bait to trick her to going to the old toolshed in the woods where the mystic gate to the Spirit World is hidden away. She just knows something is wrong… but both mom and dad don’t listen to her…. and no matter how hard she tries, the spirit just wont stop following her…. until it finally does manage to take her away.

Rini loses it…. and then starts noticing all the weird things Laura tried to tell her about… like the piles of dirt that seem to show up everywhere the pocong has been. Ivan tries to dismiss her fears… tries to take charge and be logical about everything, but only manages to make things worse.

Who can Rini turn to for help? Dr. Nila, the nice woman doctor who lives in the nearby clinic? Maybe…. but there’s something strange about her…. Laura knew something was up with her, but she’s not around to warn her Mom exactly what she was afraid of regarding the good doctor…. Well, then how about the help of a good Paranormal? One ouija board session later and Rini knows all about the female pocong… her desire to replace the daughter she killed… and that the spirit is waaay to powerful for even the seasoned mystic to handle. D’ohh!!

With some nagging… she convinces Ivan to follow the Paranormal’s advice and use a magic charm to open the gateway between worlds… the only way to find Laura, but he only does it out of a desire to show her once and for all what utter bunk the whole thing is…. boy does he get a surprise!! Oh… and promptly dies, burned to a crisp freeing his little daughter from the “Creepy World of Lost Children”…. This weird sequence is probably the best part of the whole film… the foggy woods filled with wandering little girls… the tress decorated with macabre toys and trinkets like some evil fairyland.

But then the pocong sets it’s sights on getting Laura back…. even if it needs to kill her to do it! Taking Ivan’s form… it returns to the house, and keeps trying to get Laura alone so it can poison her, then steal her spirit to take back forever….. Laura knows her dad is dead… saw him roast like a chicken on a spit, but will dear old Mom believe her?…… Naaaaww.

It’s only when the real identity of the ghost is revealed that Rini finally gets it together and faces the pocong at the toolshed for a final showdown for the life of her daughter. Will she save Laura? Well… Neko’s not gonna tell you, because you probably will want to see for yourself….

Hmmmm. This one is a nice little film… and has a particularly tricky and dangerous ghost to drive the chills along. Neko liked it a lot, and so I give it 3 “Meows” out of 5 for doing a good job of telling a good ghost story… certain lil’ touches garner it several nice “purrs” of contentment as well. The folklore is nice and consistent… the ghost genuinely scary, and little Laura is just such an adorable and endearing character that you truly feel for her as she struggles to survive this one. If there is any quibble at all, it’s with the simplicity of it all… and this one breaks no new ground in the genre, it just does what it does. What it does, though, ain’t half bad…. and that’s enough for lil’ ol’ me.

I saw this one on the official Indonesian disc, which comes Letterboxed, and subtitled into English, and has some more Trailers on board, as well as a nice “making of” feature on the film… mostly in Indonesian… but still worth a look. The price, as always for Indonesia stuff, can’t be beat….. so if it pops up for sale, you could do worse for an evening’s movie night than, “The Real Pocong”….

As always, there’s a nifty Trailer available, and here it is in it’s creepy entirety!Enjoy!

Our quick synopsis reads: “Andini is a young female college student. Lately, she has been having very vivid dreams about her sister, Miranda, who works as a hospital nurse. Soon the dreams begin to grow into frightening apparitions. In fear that something terrible may have happened to her, several of Andini’s college friends join together to help to search for news of Miranda. After talking with a woman named Vivian, who lives in Miranda’s residence and works with her in the hospital, she finds out a surprising truth about her sister. The reason Miranda left home with little warning, is because she is pregnant.

After talking with Vivian, Andini went to see another of Miranda’s coworkers, Dr. Indra. He has also been plagued by disturbing visions after having last seen his coworker Miranda. The visions include the appearance of an apparition in the hospital morgue that he thought was a Kuntilanak. He now believes that the kuntilanak is not only real, but is stalking him.

Can the friends discover what has happened to Miranda before it is too late for her and maybe for them too!”

Sounds good! Haunted morgue…. scary pregnant women ghosts getting revenge….. It’s been a while since we got to see what the nasty ol’ Kuntilanak was up too, so what are we all waiting for? Let’s all  “Read On”!!

This one starts off just about like many similar Indonesian ghost stories, with a dream sequence… in it, paranormal research doofus Mocil (played by Rizky Mocil) finds himself wandering through a deserted morgue late at night. Here he has the standard run in with ghostly nurses and the spirit of a Kuntilanak. After a good bit of creepy scares, he awakens in class, to the amusement of his fellow students. Obviously our comic relief for this one, he’s the best friend of Andini (played by Imelda Lubis) who got a real problem…. seems her beloved older sister Miranda is missing. Nobody has seen her at the hospital where she works as a nurse…. and Miranda had lied to her sister about being transferred to another hospital waaaay out in the boondocks. Why? Andini doesn’t know….. but with the help of Mocil and his friends she’s determined to find out.

Eventually the plot leads us to Vivian, another nurse who lives in Miranda’s residence hall and worked with her at the hospital. She’s certain the Miranda never was transferred, but seems reluctant to speculate as to what happened to her to make her lie to her sister and disappear. She’s obviously hiding something juicy and scandalous…. and in an Indonesian film that can only mean one thing. Yep, another of those illicit love affair triangles that just always end with death and hauntings…….

Our chief suspect  for the murder…. and you just know that Miranda was murdered…. just has to be handsome Dr. Indra (played by Mandala A. Shoji) who been seeing apparitions in hospital’s morgue since Miranda disappeared. His fiancee Sarah (played by Julia Perez) is also seeing those same apparitions, so you just know Miranda wants revenge on somebody. It just has to go that way…..

Soon enough, Vivian is convinced to spill the beans about Miranda and Dr. Indira…. and yes, they were having a passionate love affair behind Sarah’s back. The night before her disappearance, Miranda spent the night with Indira and told him she was pregnant…. but he’s engaged to Sarah, and apparently in Indonesia that’s just sooooo final that you can’t just change your mind before the actual wedding, I guess. (Must be one heck of a deposit on the wedding reception…. Hehehehe!!) So… he’s just got to be the bad guy…. right? Well….. maybe not.

We get the usual haunting stuff…… our angry spirit really spreads the hate around pretty equally. Some icky worms in the throat for her lover, Dr. Indira, some creepy shower antics for Sarah, and the usual “just out of sight” creeping about when characters are sooooo close to seeing them…… but don’t. Even our friend, the pocong shows up for some undead fun…. mostly creeping out Mocil in the side plot.

Eventually we discover that the real killer isn’t who we thought, and our spirit does get her revenge before the final credits roll. It isn’t the most original plot out there but at least it’s well done and didn’t have this lil’ Catgirl gnashing her teeth about the usual inequities in gender roles in Indonesia….. so I guess I have to give this one a basically positive 3 “Meows” out of 5. It isn’t great….. but it isn’t bad either. But…. there are certainly no surprises… and no new ground gets broken either. With it’s title…. I was soooo hoping for some more action along the lines of my fav Indonesian film of all time, “Kuntilanak”, and maybe learn more about that creepy folklore tree demon that it featured… but apparently here the kuntilanak is nothing more than a generic “long haired ghost”……. Sigh… After “Mati Suri”, this one was just so…. average. Oh well…. maybe I’ll get luckier next time out.

Of course… there’s a Trailer, so all my loyal visitors get to see some of the creepy action for their very own selves…. and here it is!

Our synopsis goes like this: “In the days leading up to her wedding, Abel (played by Nadine Chandrawinata) is visited at her home by a pregnant woman, Lisa, who claims she’s carrying the child of her fiance, Wisnu (Yama Carlos). Shocked by this revelation, Abel feels utterly betrayed and decides to kill herself. She fails in her suicide attempt and falls into a coma for a time.

Now troubled and depressed, she is comforted by her best friend, Charlie (played by Keith Foo), who asks her to take some time off at a rundown mansion he owns well away from Jakarta and her problems. Strange events begin to occur as it seems the house is haunted by apparitions of the dead. Something from Abel’s brief brush with death seems to be following her and the only way she can escape it is if she dies once again.”

Hmmmm? Well that sounds all pretty standard for an Indonesian ghost film. But Neko lives in hope for that creepy lil’ gem that will rival my favorite Indonesian horror film, “Kuntilanak”, and with that film’s director Rizal Mantovani on board for this one as well, maybe this one is finally gonna be the one!! Let’s all “Read On” and find out… shall we?

So to get started for this one, we need to understand the film’s title…. “Mati Suri” seems to translate from the Indonesian as “Apparently Dead or Comatose” but Neko prefers the perhaps less accurate but more effective “At Death’s Door” as a fitting translation. Seems in Indonesia a person in a coma is actually considered to be already dead although they may recover. This idea is the crux of the story here…. and we start off pretty quickly with the film’s heroine Abel planning her dream wedding to her fiancee Wisnu only to have her happiness shattered by a visit from a pregnant stranger named Lisa who shows up at Abel’s door that very day, claiming to know her fiance Wisnu very…. very… well. Right off the bat, she claims that Wisnu is the father of her unborn child…. no beating about the bush here. Abel refuses to believe her story but she has all sorts of intimate photos of herself together with Wisnu to show Abel as proof of her claim. After Lisa leaves, Abel immediately calls up Wisnu to confront him about this only to angrily hang up on him before he can really explain anything. Unable to deal with the prospect of Wisnu’s unfaithfulness, she goes a bit over the edge and tries suicide by sleeping pills. Wisnu races home to try to stop her; but fortunately her best friend Charlie manages to find her before she dies, and takes her to the hospital first.

They manage to save her, but Abel lingers in a coma… she’s “Mati Suri”, and even the doctor seems completely comfortable about the idea that she’s dead, but not completely dead…. it’s weird to hear them discuss Abel like that, but it’s fitting for what’s to come. Her best friend, Charlie stays by her side throughout her coma. He’s a really nice, good-looking, bespectacled guy who obviously has this huge crush on Abel but hides it from her since she’s never seen him as anything more than a close friend. Charlie gets all in Wisnu’s face when he finally shows up, telling him to beat it and all but accusing him of forcing Abel to do what she did. Eventually she awakens from her coma…. confused and with blanks in her memory she finds herself with Charlie on their way to a country estate he owns waaaay out in the wilderness, where he tells Abel she can take all the time she needs to forget her problems while helping him re-decorate the place. He’s got some idea to open it up as a “bread and breakfast” place for tourists to rent…. it seems like a good idea… at first. Having business back in Jakarta, he leaves her to be watched over by his caretakers, an elderly couple who tend to the property and who live nearby.

Problem is… Abel’s been hallucinating since she woke up briefly in the hospital…. and now here out in the creepy mansion it’s only getting worse. She’s starts seeing ghosts… especially the ghost of a little girl who died in the hospital just as Abel was brought in before her coma. She follows Abel around… tormenting her by telling her over and over that “Suicide is a sin!!!” and threatening her with the grim warning that Death is coming for her. Occasionally, in dreams, Abel finds herself in a dark corridor where the little girl…. less terrifying and scary, tries to get her to follow her down it towards a blinding light to an unknown fate. Fearful and confused, Abel always refuses to go…. so the ghost keeps haunting her.

Back in Jakarta, Wisnu tries desperately to find Abel and explain himself, but Charlie refuses to tell him where she’s gone to and it’s then that we start to wonder if Wisnu really is the bastard he’s been painted as. Meanwhile… back at the estate, the creepy caretaker’s wife tells Abel not to be frightened if something should happen at night, or if anybody should come to her. Of course, that very first evening, Abel does indeed get a visitor, who frightens her… but it turns out only to be the caretakers’ teenage daughter Wida, who says she’s come to keep her company in the lonely old house. Wida begs Abel not to tell her parents she’s staying with her though, or Wida could get in trouble for bothering her despite Charlie’s orders to her parents that Abel should have her privacy. Abel agrees, but strangely enough, the next morning, the old woman denies ever having said anything to Abel the day before about anything odd happening.

The hauntings continue…. and other spirits start appearing to Abel both in her dreams and in her waking moments trying continuously to tempt her to suicide again as she wanders about the estate trying to lose herself in the job of planning the re-decoration. Remember…. Abel is still suffering the effects of her coma… the blackouts and the memory lapses, so it’s hard to tell if these spectres are real or only in her confused mind. It’s here where the film is at it’s best…. blurring the line between fantasy and reality….. the overall effect very gothic and eerie. A version of herself even appears, trying to tempt her…. and by now, Death itself has begun to appear… just out of reach… in the form of our old friend, the pocong, his shrouded form always at the edge of her vision.

It’s “Spoiler Alert!!” time…. as the one big plot twist happens now to throw an entire new angle on things. Wisnu… it seems… isn’t a two timing bastard after all. He finally tracks down Lisa…. an obviously not pregnant Lisa… who tells him the whole story was something she’d been paid to set up to ruin his marriage and drive Abel away from him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the one who paid her is our boy Charlie. But….. that’s not the worst thing.

Charlie is…. well…. the polite term Neko likes to use would be; “nuttier than the rat poop in a peanut factory”….. and he has a fatal obsession with Abel that has lead him to basically use this whole plot as a way to lure her here to the estate where he can keep her here forever by drugging her with the help of his caretakers to satisfy this crazy need to possess her. Whoops!! Our boy Wisnu better get a move on!!

Wisnu races to the estate with Lisa to confront Charlie and prove himself to Abel before it’s too late. Mind you… he doesn’t know just how crazy Charlie really is… and ends up getting socked upside the head by the caretaker and tied up in Charlie’s “special secret nutjob shrine” to Abel. You know the one…. it’s got all the pictures and candles and little bits of her hair and those crazy writing all over the wall….. like every psycho keeps for their “girlfriend”. Then… to fix things good, he kills Lisa and dumps her body in the grungy estate swimming pool. Neko started really getting into things at this point…. and you just know what’s gonna happen next…. Yep. Seems Wida isn’t alive anymore either…… it’s her spirit that’s been keeping Abel company since Charlie went all nutty and drowned her in the pool too. Her mom finds out that Abel can see Wida, and decides to save her from her insane employer….. but it’s too late.

Charlie’s not gonna let Abel go without a fight…. and if killing her is what it’ll take to keep her with him forever… well, he’s OK with that idea too. So it’s the standard chase around the haunted estate ending at the creepy old swimming pool where he’s dumped the bodies of both Wida and Lisa…. big… big… BIG mistake for Charlie going anywhere near there…. it only gives those two angry spirits the chance to grab him but good and drag him kicking and screaming to his well deserved death. Wisnu finally manages to get to Abel…. as she is finally being led away in her dreams by the little girl, down that long dark tunnel towards the next life…… but he manages to reach her even there, professing his love for her and begging her not to leave him alone. She awakens…. back in the hospital where we all started this story. Seems none of it was real…. just her traumatized mind playing tricks on her as she hovered near the edge of death. All the stuff about Charlie and the estate… never happened…. although the doctors tell her her mind knew the truth about Charlie all along and used that to fabricate her experience…. (Say What?!?… Naw… Don’t let that bit of implausibility spoil things… Just roll with it….)

But….. then she wakes in a car with Wisnu…. driving somewhere suspiciously the way she and Charlie did in her “dream”…. and end up at the haunted estate!! What?!? Huh?? How??…. Just then…. Wisnu tells her “What? You thought you were awake? Don’t you know you can only escape from Death by dying again?” Time to cue Zombie Charlie…. and the haunting torture begins again…… for you see, “Suicide is a Sin!!” Cue the end credits!!

So…. your Favorite Catgirl Princess seems to have gotten her wish, after all!! “Mati Suri”, while not the most original of films, does what few other Indonesian horror films have lately… it entertained me and gave me quite a few nice moments with some well used scares and effective ghosts. Couple that together with a clever plot that both borrows and pays homage to other classic horror films such as “The Sixth Sense”, the beloved long haired ghosts of countless Japanese horror films, “The Others” and even “Congkak”, flashes of “Psycho” and some of Mantovani’s earlier “Kuntilanak”, with it’s dark, spooky and deadly serious suspense and we have a real gem here. A true simple, unpretentious, horror movie that leaves the viewer with plenty of scary images to ponder while even managing to deliver an Islamic warning about the Sin of Suicide without being preachy or overbearing (Which sometimes is a problem in both Indonesian or Malay films…). Add to it a nice love story that actually has a guy who’s not screwing around on his girlfriend while still claiming to love her and you’ve got a very happy Catgirl indeed!! The acting is very good… in particular Nadine Chandrawinata, Miss Indonesia of 2005, who does a very credible job as Abel. The others are good as well…. never letting themselves descend into the lame comedy that sometimes creeps into Indonesian films for no good reason the way music seems to infect Hindi ones…. Rizal Mantovani has pulled off another winner, and while it’s not as sharp as his first horror film, “Kuntilanak” it is a close second, and firmly shows him to be about the only Indonesian director capable of going for a horror film the way it needs to be done. Bravo!!

The Indonesian disc is well produced, with the usual excellent English subtitling and some nice trailers for some other films… (Yes… Neko’s looking for some of those as well….Hehehehe!!) all for the very nice price of around 10$ US. So…. ,in conclusion, I give this one a more than well deserved 4 “Meows” out of 5 for finally showing me that the Indonesians still do know how to be scary when they wanna!! Yay!! And Rizal Mantovani…. this lil’ Catgirl hopes there’s even more horror movies on your “to do” list….. I’ll be watchin”…..

Oh yes…. There’s a nice Trailer available and naturally, as always, Neko’s got ya all covered!!

The synopsis we have reads like follows: “Directed by Koya Pagayo (“Hantu Ambulance”, “Lewat Tengah Malam”), the movie revolves around a beautiful, sexy ghost known as Hantu Jamu Gendong who betrays her friends. Kafka never believed in ghost, but somehow he always gets the chance to see the ghost with her medicine basket wandering the streets thinking that she’s human. Later on, Kafka and his two friends, Meisya and Andien feel something amiss when she always appears to be around them.”

Hmmmm… not bad, given that I had to get my translations direct from the Indonesian…. but hey, look at the poster!! Freaky skull headed ghosts in flowered robes always get this lil’ Catgirl’s attention. Unfortunately, with Indonesian or Malay films that doesn’t actually give you any guarantee that the movie will be anything like that….

Still…. the movie was inexpensive and I’m such a crazy lil’ doofus for these, so let’s all “Read On” and find out if it’s a good one or a real stinker, shall we?

This one is a nifty surprise… and seems finally to have managed an Indonesian ghost story with it’s own feel for a change. This time out it’s not the Pocong, or Kuntilanak, or some forest spirit Hantu thingee…. instead we get the spirit of a young woman who is a Jamu peddler. It’s sooo nifty the way she haunts backalleys and all the dark street places with her echoing cry.. “Jamu ne…. Jamu ne….” calling her victims to their doom. But….. what the heck is Jamu anyways Neko-chan? Well…. I didn’t know for certain myself so I did a little “googling” and found out that it’s some sort of local herbalism practiced in Indonesia.The word “Jamu” seems to cover a vast range medicinal drinks made for various diseases and are available in ready-to-drink form as well as in powder satchets or capsules sold almost exclusively by street vendors.Such sellers are generally young women, and get into this line of work if nothing else is available as it requires very little in the way money or materials to get started. They are usually encountered carrying a basket slung over their arm as they sell their wares. On the island of Java most tend to sling that basket on their backs and carry it somewhat like a backpack. They are known as “Jamu Gendong”. The word “gendong” itself translates roughly to “carry on the back” in Indonesian.

Usually in the morning just before dawn, the jamu gendong will prepare several liters of several different varieties of jamu in her home, having purchased the ingredients from a local market or scavenged them from the wild. Once brewed, the jamu gendong pours the fluid into a number of empty bottles. These she places into a large bamboo basket and sets off on her regular jamu route. See…. the ol’ “Litterbox” can even be educational at times!! Hehehehe!!

Unfortunately… in Indonesia it seems, at least from what I gather from the movie, this can also be used as a cover for prostitution, and so most young women in this line of work are generally looked down on and sometimes exploited. That’s the basis of our story here….

Siri moves to Jakarta to find work after her husband dies leaving her and her child without any support and eventually she joins the ranks of the Jamu sellers only to run afoul of a gang of toughs who rape and kill her one night hiding her body to conceal their crime. (I know…. you’d think Indonesian creeps would know better than that given the large number of films that tell them what a mistake it is…) Her spirit haunts that area… angry, lost and desiring g someone to free her spirit from it’s eternal wanderings…. In the meantime, she spends her time haunting and killing those fools stupid enough to tempt her wrath by calling out for her at night in the place she died.

That’s what happens to the people in this film….. young and contemptuous of the supernatural they summon her one evening and she sets about killing them all, one by one. Sounds pretty standard so far… and it pretty much is, but the character of Siri and her backstory really touched this lil’ Catgirl…. and given the nifty way she is presented as a spirit with a story, I found myself liking this one more than many other Indonesian horror films I’ve watched lately.

As with most Indonesian efforts, there isn’t much overt gore, with the possible exception of one victim who gets killed by a throat severing fan blade. No nudity or other nastiness either, but that’s fine as it lets the atmosphere of those grimy and dirty alleys and backstreets take center stage and carry the story along. We get to the same sort of ending you expect from these sorts of films, but the trip is at least easy on the eyes and worth an evening on the couch.

I saw this one on the Malay DVD release, with a nice letterboxed image, decent subtitles and a nice, nice 6$US price tag. Given all of that, Neko can give “Hantu Jamu Gendong” a decent 3 “Meows” out of 5…. not a bad rating for a modest lil’ Indonesian effort likely to get lost in the avalanche of similar horror films out there from that part of the world. Hopefully there will be some more nice surprises in my big box of DVD’s for me to find…. till next time then, wish me luck, and “Meow, meow for now, gentle readers!”

Ahhhhh…. yes…. Trailers…. yep, Neko’s got a Trailer for this one and here it is!

Sigh….. So will I be tricked into watching yet another Indonesian horror film following the terrible.. terrible “Tiren Mati Kemaren”? Yes… I’m just that big a sucker for these goofy films…..

Our synopsis reads: “Three body hunters have been assigned with the job of finding unidentified corpses scattered around Jakarta. One day, they are surprised when a female corpse that was hit by a train went missing from an ambulance. Joko (Kiwil), the head of the group gives an ultimatum that they must find the body and return it to the mortuary. The female corpse was a deaf girl named Lala, the twin sister of Anita (Dewi Perssik). While the body hunters are looking for Lala’s body, they are unaware that a revengeful spirit is following them.”

Yep…. sounds like another standard Indonesian ghost movie alright. The big question is…. “Will it actually redeem the career of Miss Perssik in my eyes or will it confirm her lowly status of “Queen of Indonesian Sexploitation/ Horror Craptaculars”….. Guess there is really only one sure way to find out….. So pray for your Favorite Movie Lovin’ Catgirl, o’ gentle visitors, and “Read On” if you dare!!

So…. before we start this one, let’s take a peek at the poster…. Oooohhhh!! All scary and reminiscent of that far superior Korean horror effort “The Wig”…. Long hair… check… bathroom…. check….. looking at the woman from behind as she brushes her long straight hair…. check. Only one problem. It has absolutely nothing to do with the film itself. Grrrr…!!

Just as with “Tiren Mati Kemaren”, the movie poster (and therefore the DVD slipcase art) has a wonderfully atmospheric look that is not featured at all in the film and is definitely NOT representational of the movie at all. Not a good way to market a film in this lil’ Catgirl’s opinion….

Secondly…. this film really is two separate films all at the same time…. and Dewi Perssik, it seems, could only be bothered to star in one of them! She plays both our “heroine” Anita and her twin sister Lala, but outside of about 2 minutes or so of running around prior to Lala’s death beneath a Train, we don’t see Dewi again until nearly 30 more minutes have passed…. Say what? She’s the star of the story? Ummm? Nope…

Instead, we have the three bumbling Corpse collectors playing at being alternately crude and stupid as they go about their job of recovering bodies (and the various grisly parts of bodies) for the morgue where they are employed. We see how they interact with their moron of a boss, and his sexy yet oh so vapid assistant. They spend their time griping about having to do such disgusting work, dodging a bunch of weird little yellow skinned demon midgets that haunt the place, and trying to figure out how to score with the boss’s mistress.Dumb, dumb, dumb…. and not in that sometimes endearing way that Thai or Chinese films manage for such characters…

After far more of this than was necessary, they finally get the detail of picking up Lala’s corpse…. courtesy of some strange witch woman who seems to lurk around the railway for reasons never touched on…. it seems she’s only here to use her creepy Mojo to awaken Lala’s spirit and set it on the path to revenge. About this time…. (and it seems two weeks have passed) Anita actually notices her deaf twin is missing. Yep… I kid you not. She finds out she’s dead, and goes to the morgue to claim the body…. but it’s not there. Our heroes managed to let the body (and their gurney) fly away into the night mere minutes after they tuck her into the hearse. Dewi gets to become part of the stupid hijinx at the morgue, but gets no real aid or assistance from these idiots…. (I’m assuming this is all part of the “comedy”….. but it fails badly.)

In our “second” film with a film….. we follow Dewi around as she tries to figure out exactly how her sister died. She’s got the help of her best friend and a boyfriend, (which if you know Indonesian films, tells you exactly what is going to end up behind it all….) Yes… her “friend” seduced Anita’s boyfriend…. Lala saw it all…. They chased her to shut her up and end up killing her by accident. Nothing new…. we’ve seen that tired old idea before. Even the haunting consists mostly of Lala showing up to scare Anita…. (who spends a ridiculous amount of screen time taking showers, I might add…). The best part of the film is that she kills her victims by invisibly showing up and putting her hands over thier ears so they can’t hear. (It’s why she gets the nickname “The Deaf Ghost”…). Oh…. and don’t even get me started about the ghost repellant you can make by filtering water through a woman’s panties….

Nope. If this is the level of film that Dewi wants to associate her name with, she’s not gonna be a star. It’s not better than her last one, it’s not worse….. It’s just soooo much a waste of time. Your Favorite Catgirl Princess gives this one 2 “Meows” out of 5…. and only because Indonesian films by way of Malaysia are soooo darn affordable and I’m able to have at least some fun watching fairly lowbrow efforts on occasion. If you aren’t a biiiig fan of such fare (or just want to watch Dewi Perssik take lots of showers)… run, run screaming into the night if someone offers you the disc to watch…. So don’t say I didn’t warn ya….

Is there some sort of Trailer for this one? Why.. yes, gentle reader, yes there is! Enjoy….. if you can!