Bisikan Setan (1985)

... aka: Satan's Whisper

Directed by:

B.Z. Kadaryono

Vina Mintaraga (Lia Waroka) is the latest pop sensation to hit Indonesia by storm. Her tapes are quickly flying off the shelves, she packs venues (well, not very big ones but they're still venues!), she's constantly swarmed by photographers, she's on the front page of newspapers, she has an adoring public hunting her down begging for her autograph and she's just recently scored a top-selling gold album. While her professional life couldn't be better, her personal life has its problems, namely in the form of Antoni (Leroy Osmani). Back when Vina was still struggling, Antoni was a frequent collaborator. He thinks he made her and deserves compensation. She thinks she made herself and he deserves nothing. Either way, she feels she no longer needs his services and continuing to associate with him is only going to hold her back. She finds his band subpar and opts to use another, and also rejects any song he submits to her manager and refuses to record it. Another sore spot is that Antoni is secretly in love with Vina, but she's dating a college student named Baskoro (Bagus Santoso) instead.

Even Vina's relationship with Baskoro is strained. Not that the two don't love each other and want to be together, but Baskoro's wealthy and powerful parents have set him up in an arranged-marriage-to-be with Rini (Yenny Farida - MIDNIGHT THUNDER). Thus far he's rejected the union; no surprise considering Rini is an unpleasant, materialistic spoiled brat, but his parents keep insisting. That means he has to keep his relationship with the pop star a secret for the time being. When Rini catches the two out in public together, she immediately rats him out to his parents. The father, Kang (Doddy "Wijaya" / Sukma - SATAN'S SLAVE), then goes to Vina's home and demands she end the relationship, which results in a heated argument and Vina's wheelchair-bound mother (Tien Kadaryono) kicking him out of the house.

As that's going on, Antoni gets even nastier. He and one of his band mates attack Vina and Baskoro and attempt to kill him with a switchblade. For some reason, the police are never called and this attack isn't mentioned again. Antoni then starts stalking her around town and at her shows. He and two other thugs eventually kidnap her after a late night performance, drag her back to their home and gang rape her. Afterward, she's tricked into driving a sabotaged car, crashes and is killed.

I'm sure you can guess just what happens next. Yes, it's ghostly revenge time. In the cemetery, the ground cracks open, Vina (now alternately seen looking normal in her white burial clothes and as a bloody-faced ghoul) levitates out of her grave, floats through the graveyard and then immediately gets to work. She first visits one of her rapists, making him puke up worms, trapping him in a wormy (acidic?) blood shower, pelting him with levitating furniture, clawing him and then knocking him out a window. Later we get to see eyeballs ripped out, a hand cut off with a cleaver and people getting thrown off bridges, drown, run over and some other stuff.

Not only is Vina out to avenge her own death, but she still wants to intervene in Baskoro's life to help him out. She finds out that Rini isn't in love with him and she and her mooch parents are simply scheming to get their hands on all of that money. Vina would much rather he get together with the sweet, shy Astuti (Dina Mariana), a girl he casually knows from college. Coincidentally, Astuti is also an aspiring singer and, even more coincidentally, Antoni has also weaseled his way into her life as a new "mentor." He then tries to destroy the romantic relationship the ghost is trying to facilitate using the same techniques he used on Vina (namely blackmail and rape).

Even though the first half of the movie plays out entirely serious, this includes quite a few silly, lighthearted scenes of Vina using her supernatural powers in the second half that throw the tone off balance. The ghost helps Baskoro's basketball team win and ruins a date he has with Rini by pulling the seat out from under her and splashing a drink in her face. She also protects Astuti from being beaten up, pulls ears and hair, slaps people in the face, knocks people into a pool, makes someone envision worms in their noodles and pushes Rini's face into a cake at a birthday party then rips off her dress. It's all enough to finally convince Baskoro's parents that Rini is too crazy to be their daughter-in-law and they call off the arrangement. Not that they shouldn't have been controlling assholes and just let their son pick his own girlfriend to begin with but, ya know, different cultures and stuff.

This never really rises above being merely average, with scattered fun moments mingling with dull, soapy familial melodrama. I've seen far worse produced, acted and directed films from this time than what we get here, but that still doesn't make up for the fact there's nothing new plot-wise, too few surprises and too few outrageous moments. The biggest hurdle for most will be that it takes time to actually get to the horror content. In fact, the first 40 minutes would lead you to believe this wasn't a horror film at all. Once the genre trappings finally do set it, the results are mixed but it's at least a lot more entertaining then.

Also thrown into the mix are a few uninspired fight scenes, a brief and blurry "erotic" bathing scene with Farida looking directly at the camera making come hither faces and half a dozen stage performances and recording sessions featuring Waroka lip syncing her way through "Pesona" ("Charm") and "Nayalakan Lilin Dihatimu" ("Light a Candle in Your Heart"), a couple of cheesy ballads written by Gatot Sudarto, who also scored the film. The vocals were provided by Yenny Sri Wahyuni, a complete unknown here in America but, judging by her extensive discography in the 70s and 80s, apparently a popular singer in her home country at the time.

Small roles are inhabited by Baron Hermanto, Cherry Ivonne, Lina Budiarti, Eddy Bakar Pare and other familiar faces. For being the fourth most populated country on the planet (over 165 million when this was shot), Indonesia sure seemed to have tiny talent pool to pull from in the 80s since the same exact folks always pop up in these things. Not that I'm necessarily complaining either. It gives off a close knit family type of appeal similar to that of the concurrent U.S. B-movie industry.

As far as I know, this title was only released on VCD a single time but a decent widescreen version (day scenes are too soft / overexposed but night scenes look good here) is around now and it has played on Indonesian television. It's also currently available on Youtube. No real English subs are available to my knowledge but you can follow the plot easily enough translating the auto-generated subs.

★★

Godaan Siluman Perempuan (1978)

... aka: Siluman Perempuan (Demon Woman)
... aka: Temptation of the Demon Woman

Directed by:
Ackyl Anwari

Here's some more ultra-obscure Indonesian weirdness. This one's based on a ghostly figure in Southeast Asian folklore called Penanggalan / Penanggal; a word that literally means “detach,” which are also referred to as Hantu Penanggal (or “detached ghost”). These bloodsucking creatures are typically created via black magic spells and curses and appear to be normal human females during the day. By night, however, their heads detach from their bodies, complete with stomach and entrails dangling beneath them, and fly around causing havoc. This being is common throughout Asian folklore and is known by many different names and with slightly altered mythology depending on the region in question. Elsewhere in Indonesia it is called a Leyak or Palasik. In Thailand it is called a Krasue. In Cambodia it's an Ap. In Mayalsia it's a Balan-balan. It's the Philippines it's a Manananggal. The two best known films (which aren't well known at all unless you're a big cult movie fan) featuring these creatures are the Indonesian production Leák aka MYSTICS IN BALI (1981) and the Hong Kong / Taiwan co-production The Witch with Flying Head (1982). There have been some more recent offerings as well, like the Thai productions Krasue aka Demonic Beauty (2002) and Krasue Valentine (2006).

The wonderfully animated Sofia W.D. (who went on to play the Leák Queen in the aforementioned Mystics in Bali and also appeared in the Suzzanna vehicle Queen of Black Magic) stars as an old, ugly Penanggalan named Siluman (a word that translates to “demon”). Siluman is an extremely powerful, entirely evil, cackling, fetus-feasting witch with crazy hair and over-sized plastic fangs. Not only can she detach her head and send it after people (notably pregnant women whose fetuses she sucks directly out of you-know-where), but she can also shoot out her eyeballs to spy on others from afar, make animals do her bidding, disappear and reappear at will and transform into a younger, beautiful woman. The immature and non-religious Ban (Fadly), who lives on a modest, secluded farm with his pregnant wife Karta (Rina “Hassim” / Hasyim) and their young daughter Marni, sets out on foot for the local village to get some food. Siluman, who's been spying on his family and wants their upcoming baby to “be my dessert!” transforms into the lovely young Sumirah (Doris Callebaute). Sumirah calls forth her legion of cobras to attack her so that she can meet Ban when he rescues her.

After laying a sob story on the naive young farmer about how she's been kicked out of her former home, Ban agrees to let her stay in a shack on their property. With a wave of the finger, Sumirah transforms the shack it into a luxurious, fully-furnished home and later turns it into a heated pool and even a disco club! It doesn't take much effort on her part to entrance and then seduce the family man, which leaves his perplexed wife wondering why he's not returning home at night. Sumirah starts out nice, giving Ban medicine for his wife, having sex with him, helping him win money and saving him from thugs who attempt to beat him up, but that soon changes when she starts planting ideas in his head and possesses him. She convinces him that his wife and brother-in-law Mario (El Koesno) are conspiring against him and plotting to poison him. In an enraged trance, he smacks his wife around and tries to stab Mario with a knife, so they cut a chicken's throat and dribble fresh blood into his mouth to break the spell. Things only get worse from there.

Gradually, Ban is transformed into a drunken, wife-and-child beating brute with sometimes green, glowing eyes who pukes up maggots and bloody worms, pushes villagers around and bites off bottle caps with his teeth! When his wife catches him with Sumirah, the two ladies get into a hair-pulling cat fight and Ban ends up taking his new mistress' side. He demands a divorce but his brother-in-law won't hear of it, especially since he and Karta are living on his family's land. After conveniently running into a white-robed shaman who exorcises the demon from within, Ban returns home with a clear head and catches the witch doing a little maintenance on her “pretty” head that was scratched during the fight with the wife. Now wanting to get back on the path of the Lord, Ban seeks out the shaman, who gives him a necklace that he's supposed to hang on his door for seven days and nights to keep the witch away. Unfortunately, Siluman is able to send a raven to remove the necklace, sneaks in, sucks out Karta's fetus and then kidnaps Ban and takes him back to the shack. Having finally gotten her “dessert” why she continues to terrorize the family is pretty much anyone's guess.

The shaman then sends Karta to see a crippled old beggar (“H. Sjamsuddin Sjafei” / Syamsuddin Syafei) who's actually some kind of witch doctor. Before he'll help her, he insists that she first take a bite of his wounded, maggot-infested leg (!!) Why? Well, it comes in handy later on when Siluman scratches her husband's chest and she pukes up green slime that instantly heals the wound. The wife and the beggar / witch doctor manage to chase the witch off, but she has other plans in store for the family. First, she turns Mario's wife (“Waty Siregar” / Emawati Siregur) into a cat and impersonates her. After unsuccessfully attempting to seduce Mario, she transforms back into the ugly witch, shoots him with her fingernails and then turns him into a goat. The beggar and Siluman then square off for the final battle which includes lots of cheap laser effects, fire, nets, a giant butcher knife, hair used as a rope and the witch's fingernails growing about five feet long and catching on fire. With the evil defeated, the shaman shows up to deliver the moral of our story: “If you embrace religion, this kind of thing will not happen again.” Ha!

This horribly edited, ridiculous yet never boring horror-fantasy schlock also features music stolen from numerous other films (including The Omen and The Visitor), tambourine-playing drag queens instigating a fight at a gambling parlor, two men forced to punch each other out because of a spell, sped-up fight sequences, someone really getting bitten by a snake and noodles being turned into worms. Unfortunately, there's also cruelty and death dished out to several animals. In one scene, a poor tailless cat gets snatched up, smacked in the face repeatedly, waved around and then thrown right onto the floor. During another overlong scene, the witch doctor unleashes his mini-army of mongooses onto some cobras, who proceed to chew them to bits. Those scenes are anything but fun to watch and put a damper over what is otherwise a pretty amusing and silly film.

Also in the cast are S. Parya (who also did the special effects), Baun Gazali, Karsiman Gada, artist Bokir and comedic actor Darto Helm (from Tuyul), who is prominently featured on the posters despite only appearing briefly as a drunken gambler. Naturally, this never saw the light of day here in the U.S., nor in most of the rest of the world. It's so obscure it's currently not even listed on IMDb and I could find no DVD, VCD or VHS covers for it. The version I saw was recorded from a broadcast on the Indonesian UHF station Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV) some time in the 90s.

★★