Honourable Mention: Sundelbolong

Directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra and released in 1981, Sundelbolong is an Indonesian film starring Suzzanna and is part of the Severin films All the Haunts be Ours volume 2 set. The set quotes Sophie Siddique as she writes about how the film confronts the New Order Indonesian Government’s gender ideologies and the “gender fantasies of the world of the vampire ghost”. This, of course, made my ears prick up.

Bane also describes the folkloric sundel bolong thusly “In Java, there is a vampiric REVENANT known as a sundal bolong (“hollowed bitch”). It is created when a woman commits suicide or when a child who was conceived by rape dies. It appears to its prey, mostly travelers and foreigners, as a beautiful woman with unkempt HAIR wearing its burial shroud. Using its beauty, this vengeful and angry vampire will lure a man to a quiet place with the promise of an indiscretion but instead will turn and attack him, draining him of his blood.” The translation of the name is suggested in the Severin notes as prostitute with a hole and refers to a maggot covered hole in the ghost’s back.

the wedding

Unfortunately, whilst the film does follow the folklore this particular (physically manifesting) ghost does not indulge in draining blood, rather she murders her victims as we’ll see. As such the film is of genre interest. It starts with the grave of Alisa (Suzzanna), who has died very young, and a voice over suggesting that she did have some happiness in her life – this then cuts to her wedding as she and her groom Hendarto (Barry Prima) enter the reception. However, a man approaches him with a letter. It is from “the company” and Hendarto, a ship’s captain, must go to sea for nine months. They have a final drink together and mention is made of her twin sister Sinta dying at age 10.

Suzzanna as Alisa

Alisa embroiders and is called by Rudi (Rudy Salam), who owns a boutique, to propose going into business with him. She brings her samples, but a customer there knows her. She is known as Mami (Ruth Pelupessi, Satan’s Slave) and she is a Madame over s stable of prostitutes and Alisa used to work for her. Mami has an idea and Rudi changes the offer to Alisa of modelling for his range – she turns him down as such modelling does not fall into her new gender role of a dutiful wife. Driving home a car is blocking the road. Alisa goes to the driver to check he is ok and a group of men come out of hiding and kidnap her.

haunted by phantom kids

They take her to a warehouse, where she fights back but is eventually overpowered. Rudi and Mami turn up and she is offered a deal – they’ll let her go if she works for Mami again and submits to Rudi. She refuses and is dragged off, tied down and Rudi rapes her. He then has the four thugs gang rape her too. The film cuts to a trial where Mami and Rudi are accused of rape but the four are not on trial (Alisa mentions them in an outburst) and the defence solicitor calls her story into question – based on her former profession and basically victim blaming. The trial is adjourned. Worse news comes when she discovers she is pregnant and the doctor she goes to refuses to abort the pregnancy (in truth why she told him it was simply not her husbands, but not that it was as a result of rape seemed odd). It turns out that she has previously had five abortions.

Alisa's death

Realising that her husband is due home she becomes desperate, after a rather freakish hallucination of her previous aborted children as obviously disabled babies (based on the doctor suggesting abortion causes disability), she eventually (in a scene that is almost a flash but pretty darn gruesome) cuts the baby out of herself, killing herself in the process. The film then has her returning to her husband as her twin sister (he quickly accepts that her dying at ten is untrue) and, as the sundel bolong, attacking those who wronged her.

hungering for food

Both non-corporeal and corporeal, she wears a white shroud and has a wan, heavily shadowed face and a hole in her back that is rotten. Occasionally she appears as a (rather rubbish looking) skull with rotten flesh clinging to it. However she can also take the form of another woman and uses this to lure some of the men. Once lured she murders them. At one point she appears as a pocong. We get the lore that a nail in the head, something often associated with the kuntilanak, will turn her into a controllable, beautiful lady (it never happens). At one point she goes to a food stall and demands 200 satay skewers, eaten half cooked, and then drinks a pan of soup, which all drops/pours out of the back hole; showing a relentless hunger but not one for blood.

skeleton form

The fact that the vampire element is removed may have been due to the time it was made (though there is plenty of horror themes in the film) but is a shame. The film is a supernatural rape revenge film and is interesting read against Western films of that genre from the time but the social context of Indonesia at the time also has to be read into it. The classical music on the soundtrack is bombastic and, honestly, ill placed and there is a thick layer of melodrama, especially to the first 30 minutes plus, which despite the gang rape has a layer of schmaltz to it. It is notable that part way through they give Barry Prima a shirtless, action hero martial arts sequence – this film is known as a breakout horror film for Suzzanna who became one of the largest horror stars in Indonesian films but Prima was also one of the hottest Indonesian actors in the 80s.

The imdb page is here.