Serbuan Halilintar (1982)

... aka: Batas Impian Serbuan Halilintar

... aka: Lightning Strike

... aka: Special Silencers

... aka: Thunderbolt Invasion

Directed by:

Arizal

When I first did a brief capsule review for this title back in 2009, I noted, "...this seems like something Mondo Macabro might be interested in releasing." Now here we are well over a decade later and, lo and behold, Mondo Macabro will finally be releasing Special Silencers on Blu-ray here in just a few weeks! It will join their slowly growing catalogue of Indonesian titles that currently also includes QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC (1981), Mystics in Bali (1981), THE WARRIOR (1981), THE DEVIL'S SWORD (1984), VIRGINS FROM HELL (1986), LADY TERMINATOR (1989) and Dangerous Seductress (1992). Though a poor-quality English-dubbed VHS copy (sourced from an old Dutch tape) has been available for quite some time now online and on torrent sites, Mondo's Blu-ray will be the film's very first official U.S. release.

Evil, power-mad Gundar (W.D. Mochtar) is willing to do whatever it takes, even abstaining from sex to "purify" his soul and murdering whoever gets in his way, to become the head of the village of Kulon. Problem is, that role is already occupied by the wealthy and well-liked Hamid (Darussalam), who plans on soon passing the torch off to one of his relatives... and there are plenty of them in line! Included are his brother, Harun (Malino Djunaedy), his daughter, Yulia (Eva Arnaz), and his beloved nephew, Dayat (Herman Pero), whom he has raised as his own since he was a young boy. In order to destroy that family dynasty and seize control, Gundar has hatched a plan using some magical pink "Pati seeds" he's acquired. Well, he didn't actually acquire them so much as he stole them!

In a brief flashback, we see Gundar karate chop his monk grandfather and then steal his "special silencers," which have differing effects depending on who takes them. If one has a pure heart and is spiritually centered, like the monks are, they can be used to make the person who possesses them invincible to weapons and sharp objects. However, if they're slipped into an unsuspecting Regular Joe's food or drink, or if someone rotten eats one, there's another complication - a rapidly-growing tree begins sprouting in their stomach, ripping them apart! Gundar lost a limb in the process of stealing them when gramps hacked his leg off with a machete, but he's hoping it was all worth it.

Gundar's equally depraved right hand man, Gumilar (Dicky Zulkarnaen), has already managed to infiltrate Hamid's inner circle by landing a job working as his clerk, which enables him to slip a seed into Hamid's coffee. The village leader suddenly falls to the ground and dies after two branches tear through his chest.

Soon after, Yulia, who's been away at college in Jakarta, and her uncle Harun, are headed to the village when their jeep breaks down. Riding into town on his motorcycle at around the same time is Hendar (Barry Prima), a former classmate of the nephew. When he stops to help them, he and Yulia are instantly smitten with one another, just as Prima and Arnaz are instantly smitten with one another in nearly every other film they appeared together in, just as the two were smitten with each other in real life since they'd eventually marry, though smitten isn't always a permanent condition, so the two would eventually divorce. Stranded while waiting for a bridge to be repaired and waiting for Hendar to retrieve help, Yulia and Harun have their attempt at a peaceful picnic ruined when Gumilar shows up and sneaks seeds into their chow when nobody's looking. Harun ends up eating them with the expected results.

Most of the rest of the film is wall-to-wall action, with our heroes barely having the time to catch their breath before they're jumping into their next fight scene, usually against Gundar's seemingly never-ending stockpile of thugs. Though the editing and choreography is uneven, these scenes are still very entertaining, elaborately staged and fun to watch, featuring lots of high kicks, punches, flips, various martial arts moves (Prima himself has a background in tae kwan do) and incorporating spears, logs, pipes, nets, swords, sickles, axes and other props for a little variety. One of the most memorable scenes finds Prima fighting off the bad guys while on top of, and underneath, a moving truck as they attempt to stab him through the cover tarp with a machete!

Not only is there plenty of action, amusing moments and a genuinely bizarre plot, there's also a heaping helping of blood and gore. The scenes featuring the seeds at work, with branches popping out of stomachs and mouths accompanied by large quantities of gushing blood are memorable, and the special effects themselves are surprisingly good, especially for an older Indonesian film. We also get impalements, eye gougings, hacked off limbs, animal attacks, a very catchy synth score from Gatot Sudarto and lots of other goodies.

Mochtar and Zulkarnean were frequently typecast as bad guys in these things, but it's easy to see why. Both are a joy to watch and seem to be having a ball playing sleazy, evil assholes who takes great pride in all of their heinous deeds! Zulkarnaen (also great in the aforementioned Virgins from Hell) especially seems to be having fun as he rapes a virginal fisherman's daughter (Enny Beatrice) and then laughs in her face, causing her to commit suicide, and then climbs a tree and dumps a bag of poisonous snakes over a rival's head as he rides by on a bicycle. Both he and Mochtar also get to oversee the memorable finale where they torture our heroes with snakes, rats, whipping, bear traps, stinky shoes (!) and even a giant saw blade. The cast also includes Indo genre regulars Eddy S. Jonathan as the main henchman (who smokes a lot of weed) and an uncredited Husin Lubis as a healer.

What most have seen up to this point, the English-dubbed Dutch VHS from Delta Video, was in very poor condition, had the company logo frequently pop up on screen, had jagged editing cuts and blurred out nudity during the rape scene. What I just viewed is the restored version that was recently released in Indonesia. While this version looks a hell of a lot better than the Dutch VHS, it still has the same abrupt cuts and blurred nudity and the two releases have the same exact running time of 86 1/2 minutes. I'm not sure if the Mondo Macabro Blu will be longer, contain any new scenes or be truly uncensored, but I'll come back here and do a comparison once it hits the market. I'm also really looking forward to seeing their new box art since all of the older art for this title sucks. (Update: Added this below and it is indeed much, much better artwork as expected.)

The release year for this is often listed as 1979, though the copyright date in the opening credits is 1982 and all Indonesian film sources also say 1982. Ironically enough, this potential error traces back to the 1997 book Mondo Macabro: Weird & Wonderful Cinema Around the World written by British author Pete Tombs, who's one of the co-founders of distributor Mondo Macabro.

* Going to add another brief note here that the actual release year for this is still not entirely known as of this writing. My hunch of 1982 comes from both the Indonesian sources and the film coinciding with the debut of a certain cast member.

★★★

Srigala (1981)

... aka: Fox, The

... aka: Wolf

Directed by:

Sisworo Gautama Putra

Treasure hunter Caroko (S. Parya) and his two younger assistants, scuba diving experts Johan (Rudy Salam) and Tommy (Barry Prima), arrive at the secluded Situ Angsana campground. They're there to scout for a valuable gold treasure that's rumored to be somewhere at the bottom of a nearby lake. Unbeknownst to them, a fellow visitor also searching for the treasure had already been murdered there for the exact same transgression. Their first night there, they spot someone spying on them as they're discussing their plans, but the person runs off before they can catch them. The following morning, they grab their scuba gear and hit the lake. Three college student environmentalists; Nina (Lydia Kandou), Hesty ("Sisca Karabetty" / Siska Widowati) and Pono (Dorman Borisman), show up for a relaxing weekend of swimming, sunbathing and camping. Caroko attempts to run them off, but they're not budging. 

While no treasure is discovered the first day, Nina has a strange encounter with some force in the water that pulls her down and temporarily seems to possess her. Tommy has to punch her unconscious to even get her out of the water and she's revived once they get her on the dock. Everyone then goes about their day as if nothing has even occurred! Much to the disapproval of Caroko, who is all business and doesn't want any distractions, the girls show up at the treasure hunter's cabin later that night and a little romance starts to blossom between several of the characters.

The following day while the men are back at the lake, a red speedboat driven by someone clad in all black (including a black hood) shows up and starts throwing sticks of lit dynamite at the guys! That leads to a high speed boat chase around the lake, with surprisingly good stunt driving (a boat going off a ramp, hopping over the other boat and then driving through it) and decent editing and camerawork, which ends in one boat being demolished (though the exact same boat is completely intact a few scenes later!) and the other crashing into shore and exploding. Even though no one is killed, you'd figure that would be a warning sign to either get the hell outta Dodge or, at the very least, watch your damn back. No such luck here!

Everyone's still out camping, wandering off in the woods by themselves and such the following night. Johan and Hesty sneak away to make out in the woods but are cock blocked by Caroko, which somehow leads to Nina and Hesty arguing, getting into a kung fu fight (?!) and accidentally kicking Pono in the balls when he steps in to break them up while goofy comic music plays. The discovery of a rotting corpse stuffed inside a trunk found in an underwater cave doesn't encourage anyone to pack up and go either, but it does prompt a nightmare from Nina where three zombies rise from the lake, chase her around in the woods and then stick her in the trunk.

After fifty minutes of miscellaneous stuff, this finally settles down into a pretty blatant FRIDAY THE 13TH rip-off. And, when I say "blatant" it's not just because of the camp / lake setting but because it blatantly steals ideas, entire scenes, music cues and even camera shots from that film. While a bad thunderstorm ravages outside, each of the cast members gets it from the mystery assailant. There's death by an axe to the head (shown in silhouette just like the bathroom murder in Friday), spear, harpoon, getting run over and a head crushed under a car hood. Bodies are tied up to scaffolding and trees, thrown through windows, etc. What this film lacks is a Tom Savini to really make the murder scenes pop. However, since he wasn't available, most of the murders end up taking place off-screen.

As far as the killer is concerned, if you've not seen Friday (though I'm assuming you have if you're here!) and don't want their identity revealed then you're best off skipping the next few paragraphs. While there are some minor attempts at turning Caroko into the prime suspect by having him be a crank and a voyeur lurking around spying on everyone the entire time, the psycho is revealed to be Hilda. Hilda? Yes, Hilda.

Remember how after nearly everyone has been slaughtered in Friday, Mrs. Voorhees just randomly pops in at the finale to explain her murderous motives to the lone female survivor? Well, Hilda (played by the crazy-eyed Mieke Wijaya, who coincidentally just passed away five days ago as of this writing) does the same exact thing. Remember how Mrs. Voorhees lured victims to their doom by imitating a child's voice? Well, same here. And the slapping around and cat fighting, running around and hiding, getting hit in the head with a skillet (though it's a board here) and the decapitation by the water (though it's merely a stabbing here)? All here! And so is the entire canoe part (except instead of Jason it's one of those zombies) and the part at the hospital with the cops.

While this is going to be of most interest to Friday and 80s slasher fans, perhaps its most notable quality is that it's a rare 80s Indonesian genre film NOT dealing with either black magic or ghosts. Other than that, this is a pretty standard film of its type. The cinematography is pretty good, it has its entertaining bits here and there and even manages to generate some minor suspense toward the end, but it also suffers from a slow-going first half, continuity issues, illogical plot elements and the usual brain-dead characters doing incredibly dumb things throughout to ensure their demise.

Never released in the U. S. nor in an English-language version (though fan-made subs are available), this Rapi Film production was issued mainly on the VCD format in Asia. However, a widescreen HD print, which has been a rotation of the Indonesian streaming service Flik TV, is also available for view.

★★