By: JWBM
This Indonesian horror film is based on Malaysian folklore depicting an evil female entity who died while carrying a child. It turns the legend into a kind of found object horror tale with a one-track minded diabolical presence that catches unsuspecting victims in its snare. It's a sort of "The Monster Squad" meets a more recent "Stranger Things" and "It" with a group of young kids who take a strange mystery into their own hands while adults are busy doing adult things.
How the legend is depicted starts to feel as ordinary as they come if you watch horror on a regular basis. For the folks that seldom do, then maybe this might catch you off guard and be something new. The story relies on sheer coincidence that the object would land in the hands of a household with a young kid. This particular foster home has five, which ends up being a buffet for the spirit with sharp teeth and talons designed for unimaginable pain to potentially feast on. Even with that, the villain feels like a con man who shows up with a gun and ski mask that's all show and no bite, rather than slowly trapping them with something more creepy and consequential. On the one hand, it's relentless and keeps your attention to a degree, but on the other all of its mystery is out in the open: you know what it is, you know what it is after, yet you watch the kids still follow it into traps over and over again.
This has all of the familiar horror trappings: splitting up, can't reach help, following noises or visions where you shouldn't. The end result is accompanied by a sudden noise and jarring image to make you throw the popcorn in the air and shout "Lord have mercy" with the enthusiasm of a 60 year old black lady in Sunday dress. While the sets and cinematography gives this a slick look, and there are some grisly effects and a few inventive takes on this beastly looking demon, after doing the rounds on that formula it starts to feel predictable.
It's one of those stories where the villain hasn't reached a true plateau yet, and the filmmakers are meanwhile gearing up to set up a finale over dropping a bomb shell too early. The kids give some of their own personable attributes of little squabbles, getting a closer connection to each other despite their differences, along with some kind of over-used xylophone effect to signify that you should laugh on cue with them. When it gets time to throw down, they are still kids with kid logic who's main go-to is yelling each other's names back and forth to the point that you should have them memorized by the time the credits roll.
All and all, "Kuntilanak" is a simple movie with simple results you can count on at times, but shouldn't expect much more than that.
Rating: 4/10
Director: Rizal Mantovani (The Chanting; 5 cm)
Actors: Sandrinna Michelle, Aurelie Moeremans
Info: IMDB link
Trailer: YouTube trailer
No comments:
Post a Comment