Use of Tropes: Trinil: Kembalikan Tubuhku

A 2024 film from director Hanung Bramantyo, this Indonesian film uses the kuyang as a central creature (and touches into sleep paralysis also). Now the kuyang is the Indonesian variant of the krasue and normally such a film would get a review but the film changes the lore (or should I say adds a branch of lore) and it felt a tad more playing with the tropes than depicting the vampiric kuyang. The “Kembalikan Tubuhku” of the title, incidentally, means “where’s my body” – this is relevant.

The film starts on a tea plantation and there is talk of a worker, Sugi, who died recently. One worker says he died of a heart attack, but another denied that. He suggests that Sugi saw Madam Ayu (Wulan Guritno)  – who has been missing for a while – wearing a red dress in the fields, was consequently haunted by a certain song and then suffered from sleep paralysis and died. How the worker would have known about the sleep paralysis, what he saw when paralysed, or any of the other bits is not explored.

the kuyang

They retire for the night, with one keeping watch over the picked tea. He gets drunk but then there is something causing the lights to fritz and something is knocked. He shines a torch and sees a cat but we have seen a shadow move and what appears to be a head. He passes out and starts coughing in his sleep. The flying head appears – confirmed as Madam Ayu – a rope shoots around his neck, strangling him and when he is found it is assumed he took his own life.

Carmela van der Kruk as Rara

3 months later and plantation foreman Joku (Goetheng Iku Ahkin) is driving Rara (Carmela van der Kruk) and Sutan (Rangga Nattra) back to the plantation, having returned from their honeymoon. She has her head in papers from the business but Suttan sees a figure in a red dress in the fields. She inherited the business, after her father William (Willem Bevers) died and her mother, Ayu, was reported to have gone to the Netherlands (where William originally came from). Sutan was William’s nurse.

Fattah Amin as Yusuf

It appears that the deaths on plantation (five of them) have been kept from her and the police. No sooner are they back than strange things start occurring – beginning with her suffering from sleep paralysis (which looked more like a seizure). Her negative reaction to Joku being in the house – he came when Sutan started shouting for help – indicates that she is a controlling, condescending woman. Sutan soon drafts in school friend, and now exorcist, Yussuf (Fattah Amin) and it is interesting that we get both a use of (perhaps pagan) exorcism and also Islamic intervention.

book of lore

It is Yusuf who discovers that there is a kuyang involved. He explains that often it is black magicians who become kuyang and they prey on unborn (and infant) children in order that they can achieve eternal life. He equates them to the penanggalan. We certainly discover later that Ayu sold her soul for power and, had the film been around preying on the innocent for eternal life this would have been a review. Yusuf tells us, however, that some kuyang are simply searching for their bodies (having been beheaded). This is the sort we get here, with murder and mischief but no real vampiric activity.

Kuyang in the bath

The film is ok. The period setting works well and the look is pretty sumptuous. The characters are pretty one-dimensional though with the cast struggling to stretch because of this. The effects are ok but the story and atmosphere are lacking. Nevertheless, it's good to have a kuyang in film again. If you were wondering the Trinil of the title is the pet name William had for Rara.

The imdb page is here.

Kuyang – review

Director: Yongki Ongestu

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

I do like a krasue film – and that’s exactly what this Indonesian film is, though they use the name kuyang as the Indonesian variant of the folklore. There isn’t any feeding per se in this, but we do have classic krasue imagery such as the floating head with the illuminated viscera hanging beneath, the movement as a fireball and the headless body left vulnerable to attack as the krasue (or kuyang in this) stalks the night.

waiting for the car

It starts with Bimo (Dimas Aditya) looking concerned as he reads the balance in his bank book. His wife, Sri (Alyssa Abidin) comes out of the house with a suitcase, and he helps lock the door. Soon their ride arrives. They are greeted by Tarno (Yogi Gambles) and their driver is Junai (Alam Setiawan). Bimo checks a phone app that tells him what he owes and when it should be paid.

Alyssa Abidin as Sri

The film doesn’t always communicate what we’d want to know – it is clear that there is an issue between husband and wife, he wants her to trust him again, but it is never made clear if it was an infidelity, financial impropriety (given the points to his finances) or something else. Tarno and Junai are taking them to a boat where he will travel to a remote village to be the teacher. It is suggested that he needs to do this to keep his profession – again no real answer why.

drive through the forest

As they drive through forest (with Bimo and Trano asleep) Sri notices a glow flash by the window, then a face outside the window eventually causing her to scream. They have to stop as Sri feels sick and she does vomit behind the car. There is movement in the undergrowth and a flashlight reveals a coffin and they jump into the truck, which of course stalls. The coffin is a raung – a flying coffin, which doesn’t do much bar inch along the floor to be fair. There is talk of hanging coffins, suspended from trees rather than buried, and of those containing black magicians becoming raung. They distract it by tossing it some eggs – easy prey though the occupant prefers human flesh. A hand reaches out of the coffin and grabs the eggs – the occupants are revealed to be zombie-like. The truck starts and they get away.

Tingen (centre)

They get to the boat and before they get on they meet the village administrator, Ampong (Luthfi Triadi), who travels on the boat with them and fellow teacher Tingen (Andri Mashadi) who does not as he is teaching elsewhere that day. As the boat leaves we become aware that Tingen knows their escorts and asked what happened – a kuyang and raung, they report, and Tingen confirms they have been long awaiting Sri – a figure of prophecy known as the woman from another island. This person will be pregnant (Sri is, though she seems unaware at that point) and her and the foetus will be sacrificed by a Kuyang to achieve full demonhood.

spectral kids

So you have a under-populated village (after a devastating flood there are only 7 children at the school) with locals scared of the prophecy. Visions of ghostly schoolkids, and two kuyang – one of whom is suspected to be an odd old woman, Tambi Nyai (Elly D. Luthan), who is protected by her husband, Bue Alang (Egy Fedly). We get a young shaman woman, Mina Uwe (Putri Ayudya), strange alliances, a rapidly growing stomach (Sri goes from nothing to heavily pregnant overnight), and a group of raung. It’s a strange mix.

a kuyang

The mixing it up keeps this interesting. The effects are a mixed bunch but the central ones around the kuyang work well (got to love kuyang fighting each other). The acting is passable – Sri and Bimo really do come across as fish out of water, which works. At just under 98 minutes it doesn’t really outstay its welcome and I rather enjoyed this as I watched it. There isn’t much lore bar what’s been mentioned – porcupine quills and garlic round a building will ward a kuyang as the garlic confuses its sense of smell and one character has a lock of the kuyang’s hair, which can be used to track it (it moves in its presence). 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.