Kybernetická babicka (1962)

... aka: Cyber Grandma

... aka: Cybernetic Grandmother, The

... aka: Die Oma vom anderen Stern (The Grandma from the Other World)

Directed by:

Jiří Trnka

They can speak like us. They can say all the right words and do all the right things. They can teach us everything we need to know. They probably make fewer mistakes. And they can claim to feel things and care about us and nurture us and pacify us and put on an impressive almost-human-like show of compassion and emotion. But can they actually fully replace us? This eerie sci-fi tale, which is as timely as ever despite being made over sixty years ago, theorizes that they indeed cannot. "They," in this case, being robots, cyborgs, androids, cyber-whatevers; machinery and computers programmed to replace human beings by duplicating what humans typically do in their day-to-day lives but also mimicking the assumed correct things humans should say. Despite being less prone to error, age, illness and the complexities of the human psyche, there isn't and likely will never be a suitable artificial replacement for family and friends of the human variety, says Trnka. After marveling at technology, taking advantage of it and playing with all of the cool new toys in a futuristic world, sometimes all you really need is a hug from your grandma.

At a small cottage, a grandmother and her beloved young granddaughter receive a message from the girl's absent mother delivered by a drone-like device. There's a lot to gouge about the coldness of technological advancement from this one brief message alone. The girl isn't referred to by name, even by her own mother. Instead, she's "the kid" and is given her new identification number, ACH028. And then there's the fact the mother automatically assumes the little girl must be bored staying with her old-fashioned and tech illiterate grandmother in her simple country cottage. After all, she prefers her quiet, simple life and doesn't even bother with all of the dazzling gadgets available to this advanced society. However, little does the mother know, her daughter is already perfectly content with her red ball and the affection she receives from her loving granny. Nonetheless, the message orders the girl be delivered to her new home.

The trip there is a journey through a graveyard of advancements past. A paved roadway is no longer used because cars are no longer used, TV sets, airplanes, weaponry and other commonly used things of the previous generations sit around covered in cobwebs. Once they arrive at their destination, the sad, scared girl is given her number, says goodbye to her grandma and is then whisked away to her new home, which may be somewhere in space for all we know. Just like any other product, she finds herself on a conveyor belt and is then placed in an egg-shaped glass pod that entertains her with machine-generated music as lights and other pods travel around a complex system where seemingly meaningless numbers, letters and symbols constantly flash. It's all impressive, yet cold, confusing, impersonal and sterile.

Finally arriving at her destination, the girl discovers her new home cavernous, quiet and deserted. Both of her astronaut parents are away; mom on some "geological expedition" and dad back on the moon. Left in their place to babysit is a robot (voiced by Otýlie Benísková) who's been programmed to behave just like a grandmother; even physically designed for that purpose to resemble a comforting chair with angel-like doily wings. "She" insists there's no reason to be scared, assures the girl it loves her, wants the girl to call it grandma and is equipped with all kinds of annoying old school phrases like like "A healthy mind is a healthy body!" and "Cleanliness is next to godliness!" When it comes time to scold ("Leaning out the window is strictly forbidden!"; "Sit straight!") it does so in the same artificially chipper tone. It coaxes her into a bathroom where robot arms do all of the cleaning for her and then sits her down for a bedtime story that involves murder and dismemberment. Needless to say, the girl is distrustful and horrified, but her story ends on a hopeful and heartwarming note.

This is another gem from influential Czech animator Trnka that I probably should have watched a lot sooner since I'd previously loved his allegorical short THE HAND (1965). His trademark combination of stop motion animation and puppetry is put to visually striking effect here, with unique, brilliant designs for this futuristic world, as well as an important message delivered in a concise and affecting way. Even more impressively, this is able to relay its exact intentions to the audience with surprisingly little dialogue, instead focusing on the visuals and sound design, with Jan Novák's varied score, alternately whimsical and disquieting / horrific, ably supporting the scenario.

Since we've already moved into an age where people are not only somewhat disconnected from nature and the outside world, but also somewhat disconnected from other human beings, what this has to say is even more relevant now than it was back in 1962. While the flesh-and-blood grandma may be slower and more feeble, she has the advantage of interpersonal wisdom and nuance gained through lived experience. Her genuine affection for her granddaughter is not something a computer can exactly or believably duplicate, just as the granddaughter is intuitively more receptive to love coming from an organic place that feels earned and authentic as opposed to a manufactured one.

★★★1/2

Roh (1989)

... aka: Spirit

Directed by:

Susilo SWD

It's been awhile since I've seen HELLRAISER (1987), but this movie really brought back fond memories of it... It's a nearly scene-for-scene remake / rip-off, sans credit to the original filmmakers, naturally! All of the primary characters (Julia, Larry, Kirsty, Frank, etc.) have been duplicated, only renamed, and most of the same things that occur in the original film occur here in roughly the same order. Of course, being an Indonesian film, they didn't have near the budget or talent of the famous 80s hit, which is evident just a few minutes in. Most of this takes place inside one home and the sets are ridiculously simple and sparse. It's almost surreal how blank everything is here, as if this all takes place in some kind of rainbow void instead of planet Earth, though that strangely also gives this its own unique vibe.

Instead of the famous puzzle box, Satanist "Lucky" Lukito (Hengky Tornando - BLACK MAGIC ANNIHILATION) has acquired a special little Halloween-bargain-rack-lookin' metal sphere with a smiley face on it (!) to make contact with the underworld. However, the device ends up sucking him straight to hell, where he's tortured with hooks that shoot out of a rotating column and rip all of his flesh off. Lukito had been practicing the black arts in the rat-infested attic of his wealthy, oblivious brother Bramasto's (Pong Hardjatmo) mansion and, while staying there, also carrying on a passionate affair with Bram's dissatisfied wife, Astria (Enny Beatrice - VIRGINS FROM HELL).

After Bram slices his hand while cutting up chicken, he dribbles blood on the attic floor. The floor sucks it up, starts smoking and then we get a copy of the gory regeneration scene from Hellraiser, only this time using some very poorly executed stop motion animation to achieve the effect. Though Lukito can now speak and technically has a functioning body, he's weak, skinless and in a partial skeletal state. Only fresh blood can both sustain his life and help fully restore his body, and that's where Astria comes in. She loves Lukito, not her husband, and is willing to do whatever it takes to help her lover.

While her husband's at work, Astria starts dressing up sexy, hitting local bars and aquariums and picking up men. She brings them home, lures them into the attic and then hits them over the head with a hammer. Lukito then feasts on the blood and, with each new victim, starts becoming more and more human-like. Eventually he just needs a new skin suit to complete the look. Bram's college-aged daughter, Nadia (Sally Marcellina - THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER), is distrustful of Astria to the point where she refuses to even live in the same home as her, despite her father's wishes. She's also plagued by nightmares on her stepmother trying to kill them.

After stumbling upon Astria and Lukito murdering another of the their victims, Nadia gets her hands on the sphere and runs off. She's involved in a car accident and ends up in the hospital, where the sphere is accidentally activated. The wall cracks open, she steps inside and encounters most of the same, though slightly altered, demons / "cenobites" as seen in the original. There's a fat one, there's the one with the huge ring through its face that shoots fire out of its mouth and there's a female one, who always wear sunglasses because she has no eyes and appears to be the leader of the demons. Conspicuously absent though is the most famous of them all, Pinhead, though that would have perhaps made things a bit too obvious for comfort, or it may have been a make-up job beyond the talents of the fx crew. Also no Chatterer.

Clearly this is no match for the original film, and it's not even good as far as remakes are concerned (there are zero improvements to the first and it adds nothing new or novel to the original concept), but it's made somewhat palatable by the speedy pacing, large amount of make-up effects and, as you can probably tell from the screen caps, the extremely colorful visual presentation.

While Suzzanna is by far the most famous horror movie star from Indonesia, she wasn't the only actress in the game at the time and there were a number of others who rivaled her credit-wise. Beatrice and Marcellina were just two of them, but for some reason these actresses (Yurike Prastika, Farida Pasha, Rina Hasyim and Joice Erna were some others) are all but ignored nowadays. Drawing a comparison, we could say Suzzanna was a Jamie Lee Curtis type in that she got all of the fame and leads in the higher budgeted productions of the day, while the others were more comparable to the American B-movie "Scream Queens" that flourished around this same time. Tornando (sometimes spelled "Tarnando") also has quite a few genre credits under his belt.

The cast includes Agyl Syahriar in a useless role as Nadia's supportive boyfriend Djoni (to be fair this same role was equally useless in the original Hellraiser), Simon P.S. as one of the victims and Belkiez Rachman as Lukito's teacher (who may be Satan himself).

Though this was never officially released outside of its home country, it's now available online with several different sets of fan made English subtitles. The first set is a Google translate of the original audio, which skips over large portions of the dialogue, and the second was whipped up by a Clive Barker fan who didn't seem to follow the original audio much at all and decided to swap the original character names out for those from Hellraiser! The available print is also poorly formatted in what appears to be a faux widescreen attempt which frequently leaves the tops, bottoms and sides of people's heads cut off. Still, considering many 70s and 80s Indonesian genre films are in such terrible shape they're damn near impossible to watch, this at least looks OK-ish.

★★