(1981)
Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra
Overall: MEH
Though it is laborious in the pacing department, Sundelbolong, (Sundel Bolong, Devil Woman), still offers up another crop of ridiculous and striking supernatural sequences, plus a wonderfully committed performance from Indonesian scream queen Suzzanna. Aside from the cannibal movie Primitif which was also produced by Rapi Films, this is the first straight horror vehicle from director Sisworo Gautama Putra who would also go onto make Satan's Slave the following year. The story and structure here is much more aligned with The Queen of Black Magic though, which immediately proceeded this one and had Suzzanna back in the lead. Based off of Javanese mythology, the title spectre is an archipelago prostitute ghost with a large hole in her back for some reason, who we see raped as a living woman, committing suicide, and then reaping revenge from the grave. One guy trips balls thinking that he is in an enclosed room with cardboard brick walls surrounding him before he impales himself on a gravestone and in the finale, Suzanna's arms project from her body and turn into several arms that stab people. Unfortunately, such wonderfully quirky and macabre elements take a long time to show up with too much downtime in between, but it still packs a goofy punch when it tries.
(1981)
Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra
Overall: MEH
Eventually transforming into an Indonesian Friday the 13th, Srigata, (The Fox), forces its derivative slasher elements into an altogether uninteresting story to begin with. Three scuba-diving gold-seekers and another three vacationing dingbats inadvertently meet up in a jungle setting where hardly anything happens for an hour besides a motorboat chase, (even though one such motorboat is destroyed on camera only to miraculously be in one piece again in the following scene), zombies that only show up in a dream sequence, and a random kung-fu fight between two of the women. The last act hilariously recreates the same finale in Friday as a shot-for-shot remake, down to the deranged older lady chasing the final girl in a cabin; a final girl that also gets pulled into the water by a deformed person and then wakes up in a hospital. With blatant plagiarism in tow, the script is otherwise flimsy at best in trying to sandwich its various components together, plus spontaneous outbursts of goofy humor help to further thwart the tone. Both boring and awkwardly confused, it is a dud from front to back, with just a few outbursts of unintentional, copy-cat hi-jinks thrown in for good, (bad), measure.
(1982)
Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra
Overall: MEH
Fusing fantasy and horror in both a ridiculous and underwhelming fashion, Nyi Blorong, (The Snake Queen), is another starring vehicle for Indonesia's premier genre darling Suzzanna. As the title goddess, she gets to wear outrageous costumes while men find her irresistible, and after falling in love herself with a human man for a couple of minutes before deciding to change her mind, she ultimately does spontaneous battle with a cackling witch in the finale. Considering that said witch was only introduced once far earlier in the movie and that the majority of the film haphazardly bounces between being a combination of love triangle, possession story, and cautionary tale, it seems to be persistently firing in several directions at once. Though the, (presumably added after the fact), narration makes it easy enough to follow, the jumbled plotting is still a mess and undermines many of the set pieces which are absurd and inconsistent. Things do get sluggish at times as well, though director Sisworo Gautama Putra still maintains an eye for stylish visuals in spite of the usual, low-end Rapi Films budget that he has to work with.
No comments:
Post a Comment