31 Days of Halloween: The Elixir

2025, Kimo Stamboel (Headshot) -- Netflix

Wouldn't be the season without at least one zombie movie.

A family patriarch is gathering his family at their home in a small village outside Jakarta, Indonesia. He is Sadimin (or Dimin; Donny Damara, Hotel Sakura), a greying widower who married Karina (Eva Celia, The Shadow Strays), his daughter Kenes' (Mikha Tambayong, Blood Curse) childhood best friend, which caused an irreparable rift between the two women. Kenes husband, whom she is also at odds with due to his infidelity, is there to finish a merger with Dimin's small but lucrative herbal supplement company. I guess herbal medicine is big there? Unfortunately Dimin's rushing to produce a new age defying concoction before his scientists have tested it thoroughly and downs a sample. Amazing, it takes decades off his appearance.

Except under an hour later, he dies in painful throes and is turned into a zombie, immediately attacking his family and staff. His staff succumb pretty quickly, while one grounds man who got sprayed in the face with blood drives off seeking medical help. He only gets as far as a large family gathering celebrating a circumcision (!!!), before he too succumbs to the zombie infection, slamming his car into the celebration crowd and immediately munching down on them. Thus the plague has begun.

Like most zombie that take place at the beginning of the plague, its about a small group fleeing the ravenous hordes of flesh eating dying and dead. There are the two young women, Kenes' husband & son and eventually another couple who they blunder into. The small village doesn't make for many secure buildings, so everyone ends up at the local police precinct where all but one cop have been eaten & transformed. How will they survive? Or more typically, who will survive.

The movie had two things going for it: a very very good special effects budget, and choosing to have the movie set absent of any "zombie" mythology at all, i.e. even the video game playing, crossbow building brother-in-law doesn't bring up zombie lore. The practical effects are pretty impressive here, and the drone shots of the running hordes along the narrow right angle streets between the rice fields in the lush, verdant rural village are incredible. CG or a cast of hundreds of extras? Hard to tell, which is a good thing. This movie treats its zombies as something of its own, their own gnashing teeth, their own twisted contortions and the panic stricken irrational responses of the survivors. These people have zero situational awareness, but they don't know they are in a zombie movie, so... In some ways, a little silly, but it takes itself seriously. 

Note: I watched this on my own, as seasonal filler, and even if Marmy had been interested in a zombie movie, and she isn't, this one would have immediately turned her off. It depicts the infection moving quite quickly through the body, visualized by a spread of holes in the flesh akin to those caused by parasites, giving a quick trypophobic reaction to even me, who is not bothered by it. It was gross; gross gross gross.

31 Days of Halloween: May the Devil Take You

2018, Timo Tjahjanto (Portals) -- Netflix

Or  Sebelum Iblis Menjemput.

OK, I don't care if someone is doing an enthusiastic homage to Sam Raimi; to me, if the movie ends up looking a patchwork of pieces lifted from other horror movies, and yes, many of those patches are Evil Dead ripoffs, then I am not impressed. So, if you are going to do such, at the very least you have to have a tightly done movie with consistent internal structure and a decent plot. Instead, here get an hour & half of screams from the antagonists and protagonists.

Way to just jump into the disgruntle !

Indonesian (horror) films, for us at least, have almost entirely been about tragic family situations in rural areas. So, when this movie started in the city, with Alfie (Chelsea Islan, Headshot) being called about her father in the hospital, I was thinking, "OK, something different." Bzzzzzzt, nope, because no sooner does Alfie have a nasty encounter with something clawed & terrible in the hospital (just a typical jump scare vision, followed by daddy blood fountain), then she returns to her father's house in the country. This is the house she knew as a child, before her mother committed suicide, before her father remarried and started another family she didn't fit into. There is literally a line, "We are her family, but she is his biological daughter."

Now, let me not forget the preamble where father dearest is shown making a pact with a evil priestess lady for... well, for cash. She shows up at his house, knocks on the door (evil shamans knock?!?!), and is shown to a pre-prepared ritual chamber in the basement, where she eats hair and fills up his briefcase with cold hard cash. Then we transition to opening credits where he is suddenly, unexpectedly rich, gets richer through real estate but soon after tragedy befalls him. Guess evil witch hair magic is temporary? Don't trust Satan based ponzi schemes? Who woulda known...

Not moments after Alfie arrives at the house, her not-family shows up. They want Alfie, who has the deed to the house, to liquidate it, partially to cover hospital bills, but mostly because failed actress New Wife needs to be kept in the lifestyle she has become accustomed to. Her husbands financial downfall and really nasty, obviously demonic disease is truly inconvenient.

Of note, there is a basement door, covered in those little rune printed prayer sheets, the kind you should never remove in anger or disgust. Its also nailed shut and padlocked. What does that mean? GOOD STUFF DOWN THERE ! In most movies they contrive a reason to go through the Scary Go Away Door, but not this family. Devil Gotten Gains must lead to ludicrous levels of greed. No sooner do they open the door then New Wife (mom!!) is dragged into the dark, only to return moments later Possessed By a Demon. After a bit of fighting, a nibble on one of her daughters and some more blood fountaining, Mommy Demon jumps through the window.

OK, what? That's it? She just wanted to leave? Well then, everything should be fine, right?

Alas no...

The movie continues, finding unending reasons to have the kids confront demons, spirits and anything else the director has seen in other horror movies, usually Japanese or American. For example, having someone trying to climb their way out of a muddy, water filling grave, but... why is it raining the basement? In the Sam Raimi spirit, some go mad and turn on the others, while Alfie remains true to saving the family that has rejected her. Eventually we have to actually go into the basement to have Visions of Exposition, and background visions of a Horny Goat Fellow -- I have mentioned before my dislike for having scary imagery in the background that is purely for our benefit; like, if the Devil is taking time to show up, why not reveal himself to people? Oh, the exposition? Dad came back to the house to sacrifice his family for more money but... changed his mind? He stabbed the witch and she cursed him with the blood fountain disease. So now Alfie has to unravel some blood hair paper magic to stop it all but not before pretty much everyone dies.

In much the way western horror movies often draw upon Christianity motifs, while this one is wrapped up in such to a degree, the meat of the movie is about family. Alfie just wants some, Dad is horrible for sacrificing his for money and mom (Old Wife) did not commit suicide, but was his first sacrifice. Sure, most American horror movies have a focus on family as well, but the direct focus of this movie is on them as a unit -- only Alfie is an individual. Much of the screen time, when not presenting us with low-budget monster makeup, is about the trials and tribulations of keeping a family together, especially ones that don't deserve it.

And again, if you are going to wear your Sam Raimi love on your sleeve at least do something interesting with it. 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts

2017, Mouly Surya (Trigger Warning) -- download

I said during my write-up of Trigger Warning that I wanted to reach back to Mouly Surya's groundbreaking and critically acclaimed (I need another way to say that catch phrase) film. I wanted to see if there was something the director brought from this movie to that Hollywood movie that was.... well, rather uninspired (another common film writing phrase I need to replace). But there were elements, as I mentioned, in the quiet moment where I suspected I saw the director at play, untampered. I think I was right for this movie, also about a woman wronged and taking matters into her own hands, is best during its quiet moments with the lead.

I need to write about this movie with less of the snark I usually use. This writeup needs to be a sobre, mature post considering the topic and the attention/intent used to make this movie. I harken back to Kent's commenting about intentionality in movie making, and I don't always agree this holds true, but in this movie EVERYTHING is done with intent, there is nothing added for the sake of a producer, this is a proper creator's vision movie, and for that at least, it deserves my respect.

I know nothing about the Indonesian film industry; I have probably only seen a handful of horror movies from there. I am saying this because I don't know whether this movie is courageous in their film world, but it definitely is from a general film making experience. Dealing head on with the cultural views of rape and a woman's status in one's own society has to be courageous. And at the same time Surya makes a movie with art and intent that resonates with the rest of the film viewing world.

A bit of the snark floats to the top with me thinking many of the critics gave it high marks just because of the subject matter, and not whether they "liked" the film or not. It did well at film festivals around the world, real well, but I still think most film critics would be... "it was fine."

Marlina (Marsha Timothy, The Raid 2) is a widow who lives in the dry hills of the island of Sumba. Her house is far from even the middle of nowhere, from our western perspective. Sumba has an interesting death ritual which plays a quiet part in the movie, as Marlina's husband sits in her house's main room, posed in a crouch, wrapped in many colourful blankets. People of Sumba often cannot afford "proper" burial rituals and will leave family members in the dry air, essentially mummifying them, until they can complete the funeral rites. In this movie, he is a prop, a reminder that Marlina is alone, entirely. She is now subject to whatever other men want to do with her.

Thieves come to her house, claiming her husband owed them money, and they will take everything, including her. More arrive, with a truck, and load all her livestock into the back. They demand her make them something to eat, they want chicken soup (waingapu) after which they will all ... take her, starting with leader Markus (Egy Fedly, Satan's Slaves). But not before he takes a nap.

She makes the soup with small green & red berries, and from they way she handles them, we know what they must do. Markus is oblivious as each of his fellow thieves die from the poison, and chooses rape over soup. In the act, Marlina grabs his golok, a sword or machete carried by all the men, and beheads him.

This was the first act, called The Robbery.

The next act is The Journey and has Marlina on her way to the police station with Markus's head. She is not hiding the fact she murdered him. Along the way, at the "bus stop", she meets "neighbour" Novi (Dea Panendra, Gundala) who is "10 months pregnant". She is heading to town to find her husband, who has run away because of her constant need for sex. Her mother tells her sex will encourage the baby to come, but the act, and her constant desire for it, disturbs him. Novi is blunt, talkative and... well, not really shocked at what Marlina has done.

Along the way, on the bus, a truck really, into which everyone piles, including two small horses and a family on their way to deliver a dowry, they are hijacked by a pair of surviving thieves. These two men had gone off in the truck with as much livestock as they could steal, and were returning for the rest when they discovered the bodies. They gave chase. But Marlina is able to escape on one of the horses, and she continues her journey, followed by the headless apparition of Markus, playing his small, roughly made wooden instrument, a jungaa.

In The Confession, Marlina arrives at the police station and is told a familiar story. She has no evidence, only her word, and they don't have the funding for rape kits, and they know she won't have funds to go to the hospital for such. It doesn't matter much to them, not even the robbery. Marlina doesn't seem surprised. But its been a long, hot journey and she is just tired. Back to her house.

In The Birth, one of the thieves has forced Novi to come back to Marlina's house, and coax Marlina to return, with Markus's head as well. Novi found her husband but he yelled at her and hit her, convinced she must be sleeping around and that is the reason the baby hasn't come yet. At Marlina's house, again the women are asked to cook for the men who are assaulting them. Novi makes food, while Franz, the youngest of the thieves retrieves the head from Marlina and poses Markus's body in much the same as Marlina's husband, resting his head upon its shoulders, and wrapping it in the blankets he steals from her husbands body. He has much more tenderness and caring for the body of his fellow criminal then for any of the women in the movie. When he attempts to rape Marlina, Novi comes rushing in with his golok and beheads him. In the wash of blood on the floor, the excitement and trauma, Marlina helps her deliver the baby, rather easily, a healthy baby boy.

The movie is a rather matter of fact presentation of what Surya must see women dealing with in Indonesia. Is it rural life? Is it all Indonesia? Its not a stretch to think it could happen everywhere, anywhere, for such things happen here in North America. The movie labels Marlina a murderer, without any doubt that is what she will be seen as in everyone's eyes. What the men did, or intended to do, doesn't matter. There are no "extenuating circumstances". But nothing in the movie is done with any pondering -- they have done what they had to do. It is life, and death.

It is said by many, including Surya herself, that the movie styles itself a Western. From the dry wide-shots of the landscape, to the ever present Sergio Leone style (actually Ennio Morricone but associating it with Leone and his movies makes more sense) music, she knew what she wanted it tone and look. But for me, it was the locked off shots of rooms, the geometry squared, that looked grand. We are left feeling like we are looking in on events, unable to intervene, silent collaborators with the abuse.

I still feel its kind of a shame her next movie would be the easily dismissed Hollywood/Netflix revenge flick Trigger Warning but its important she got the chance, the chance to work in the industry, be exposed to the morass of how things are "done over here". I am curious what she will do next.