Sumpah Pontianak – review

Director: B. Narayan Rao

Release date: 1958

Contains spoilers

This is actually the third and final of a series of films about a pontianak and is translated as Curse of the Pontianak. I feel (as I have watched this standalone without having seen the other two films) that this does follow on – you can feel the threads coming through, the taken for granted moments that the earlier films likely addressed – but it is perfectly watchable in its own right. It has some bizarre musical moments (satay song, I’m looking at you) and some truly awful looking creature costumes that have a charm to them nevertheless.

Salmah Ahmad as Maria

It starts with a torch wielding mob pitching up at the village chief’s house but Samad (Mustapha Maarof) calms them, suggesting that the pontianak will not go against her daughter’s wishes. The daughter is Maria (Salmah Ahmad) – the bride of Samad. From what I could gather Chomel (Maria Menado), the pontianak, must have agreed to have a nail in her neck to limit her powers and to leave the place.

Maria Menado as Chomel

We see Chomel, who looks like she has some form of skin condition, approach a grave and speak to the occupant who is her father. She admits that she had used magic to try and make herself look beautiful. The spirit of her father speaks and says it is too late for her, she carries the curse of the pontianak. She hobbles off into the forest and eventually finds a new village where she manages to find work.

Satay song

Maria, however, misses her mother and when she doesn’t appear to her (though she does hallucinate her in her beautiful form), she sneaks off and searches for her. This leads Samad and a group of men from the village to go out looking for her. One of the group is a local satay street vendor and he gets two songs about satay during the film – the first sees him leading a chorus of kids pied piper like through the village. It is truly bizarre.

the pontianak

So there are a few misadventures through the film. Samad splits the group up, going on his own and ends up rescuing Maria from an Orang Hutan who has kidnapped her. The other group reach the village where Chomel has moved to, where livestock and people have been killed. A pontianak is blamed – and the finger pointed at Chomel. It is actually a strange beaked human-sized lizard killing people. During that misadventure Chomel, running from angry villagers, pulls a bamboo stake from the floor and out of a buried corpse, who then comes to life. He was cursed to live pinned to his grave 50-years before and the staking is reminiscent, of course, of western vampire myth. He takes a fancy to Maria and, in a strange costume, steals the popular young woman.

pulling the nail out

To be able to save her daughter Chomel needs her powers and convinces the villagers to pull her nail from her neck. There is some doubt as they do not want her to suck their blood but they agree, though pull it out with a very long piece of string so they are a distance away, and this allows her to take a fanged pontianak form and to fly. The pontianak form looks awful but is also kind of fun, in a B-movie sort of way and that sums up the film.

flying

Not a great piece of cinema, with songs that break pace and an awful comedy character in the form of (and named as) dullard Dol. Yet there is some naïve fun to be had in this. After all, it's 1958 and this is perhaps pathing the way for Malay(/Singapore) creature features of the future. Jamming the various monsters in means it doesn’t allow itself to get boring. I mean, it might be strange but even the first satay song is kinda fun (not all the songs are welcome, however). 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Dark Whispers: Volume 1 – review

Directors: Lucy Gouldthorpe & Katrina Irawati Graham (segments)

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Dark Whispers is a portmanteau film with a wraparound that sees a woman, Clara (Andrea Demetriades), sorting out the effects left by her deceased mother. Among them is the book Dark Whispers, which she starts to read – until the book unnerves her but then she finds she cannot destroy it and must continue reading.

Not a shock to discover that the shorts – which seem to have been previously made shorts, as is often the case – make up the stories of the book. Whilst they do contain supernatural elements the film didn’t feel horror to me, more thriller with almost a Tales of the Unexpected vibe to some. The shorts are all directed by female directors. We are looking at this for one film in particular plus a vampire connection in another.

a bite

The vampire film is called Grillz and was directed by Lucy Gouldthorpe. Milla (Lucy Gouldthorpe) is playing the online dating game and is getting a lewd suggestion from one prospective beau. He doesn’t show for a liaison so she meets a second, username Derwentparkdreamboat (Jared Goldsmith). Whilst they are having a drink we notice that her teeth seem too numerous for her mouth. Later, in an underpass, she comes on to him, but as she bites his neck she breaks her canine teeth – an accident that does not help her date, however.

new fangs

Her next search online leads her to look for a date with a dentist, and she successfully hooks up with Graham (Tosh Greenslade). On their date she is self-consciously hiding her teeth, he makes her show him and takes her to his surgery. Some dentistry magic and she has some fancy metal fangs… But what will be his reward for such an act of altruism? That I won't spoil but we can note that the vampire in this has a reflection. It is a short, short – only around the 5–6-minute mark and so the story is very simply drawn, the filming black and white.

childbirth

The other I want to mention is entitled White Song and was directed by Katrina Irawati Graham and tells the story of Raesita (Alana Golingi) and her heartbreak when her love, Andrew (Luke Wright), dies. The story is told by the Kuntil Anak (Derty Eka Putria) who is drawn to her sorrow. The credits to the film contain a note that “Also known as the Pontianak, the Kuntil Anak is the traditional Indonesian ghost of a woman who dies in childbirth.” Sometimes the kuntilanak is depicted as vampiric of course.

giving comfort

In this not so much. She does tell us her story, of her being married and her husband (I Gusti Made Oka Wibawa) being physically abusive and subjecting her to marital rape. Of the difficult birth that kills her and a child born in anger. However, her interaction with Raesita is one of comfort and love – though her idea of comfort is to make the pregnant Raesita become as she is… This was interesting and a nice take on the myth.

standing above victim

The other shorts were of a varying quality, though the collection altogether is worth looking at. However, mark the caution that it is more thriller (perhaps chiller) than horror. In the case of anthologies, I score for the vampire segment(s) – in this we only have the one – White Song being more of a genre interest as there is no vampiric activity. Grillz is cute enough but is really short and very simplistic – 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US  

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Revenge of the Pontianak – review

Directors: Glen Goei & Gavin Yap

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

As this hit its local Malay market it also appeared internationally on Netflix, which shows that the streaming service does do its part in opening a market for international films. What we get is a story of supernatural revenge but I’m not altogether sure that it hits the mark as it should.

This is a shame as this could have been a lush entry into the annals of Pontianak films – a creature that hasn’t yet flooded the vampire market and could do with a strong entry into filmographies.

Shenty Felizaina as Siti

The film opens with an intertitle that explains that if a woman dies whilst pregnant, or at the point of childbirth, and does not receive the correct funeral rites, then she will return as a vampire. The issues with the film then start with the opening scene, where we see a grove of trees at night and hear crying. We see a car with the doors open. It tries to set a scene but doesn’t reveal anything at all (as there is a mystery element to the film) and the grove feels like props rather than an actual grove. The scene needed to give us more, whilst maintaining the mystery’s integrity, and the atmosphere is frankly lacking.

wedding

However, the next scene detailing the wedding of Khalid (Remy Ishak) and Siti (Shenty Felizaina) was lush and beautifully photographed. Khalid has a son, Nik (Nik Harraz Danish), who perhaps feels distant from Siti and more could have been done with the relationship with his father (we get a little but it then takes the relationship as read) and a lot more with the relationship with Siti – perhaps building more resentment and then moving towards acceptance and even dependence.

Lady in Red

Khalid’s brother, Reza (Hisyam Hamid), is the best man (or equivalent) and he has arranged for old friend Rais (Tony Eusoff ) to visit for the wedding. During the celebration Rais sings a song for the couple, entering into a duet with wedding singer Ida (Nadia Aqilah), and during the party Rais seems to see a mysterious woman in red (Nur Fazura) at one point. He leaves with Ida but accidentally knocks her out as she smashes her head onto the dashboard when the woman in red appears in the road and he slams the breaks on. He is attacked by her.

Rais' left dead

The next day Siti and Khalid find blood on the outer deck of their house and then see Rais, pinned to the trunk of a tree and very dead, high above them. Local holy man Su'ut Din (Namron) blames Siti for the calamity, claiming she has brought a curse to the village. She hasn’t, not really, but is more the catalyst for the curse becoming apparent. The curse takes the form of a Pontianak and it isn’t really too much of a mystery as it is obviously Nik’s mother, Mina, who is seeking revenge. The film details what happened to her and why the men she attacks deserve everything they get. And this is the biggest issue – the mystery is no mystery at all.

the living dead

She doesn’t particularly act like a vampire either, though there is a claim that local children are becoming ill. This should have been explored in detail and a whole thread of her being a monster – even if she is a righteous monster – could have been explored. It wasn’t. It also means that she doesn’t do to much that might be described as actually vampiric. There is an indication of possession at one point.

the pontianak

There isn’t too much lore; we know how a vampire is created and it is killed with a (sacred, one guesses) nail to the neck. As well as a deeper exploration of lore this also needed more vampirism, more moral ambiguity and much more of a solid mystery, rather than going through the motions of a mystery and allowing the viewer to crack it very early in the film. It needed tension, more atmosphere and perhaps more gore. It isn’t all bad, but it certainly isn’t something to write home about and it could have been so much more. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vitaortus Book 3 - review

Author: Dea Schofield

First Published: 2014


The Blurb: After the shape-shifting violence of the night of the Brumalia in Vitaortus Book Two, Devi Trevathan, Prime Channel, has trouble forgiving her new sanguinivorous friends. She refuses to speak to her Champion, Lord Alexander Gregory, but there is a price to pay. The Vitaortus now have a mysterious disease which threatens the plants’ survival. Meanwhile, bizarre happenings are spreading out from remote Pacific islands which Alec and company have been investigating. Ex-CIA assassins, demons, zombies, revenants, sorcerers, spirits–and of course, new species of Vampire—all figure in Gregory finding his way back into Devi’s good graces. But the Washington DC-based religio-political group, The Brotherhood, has dire plans for her, as well as for all mankind. A supernatural wild card has joined them with a nefarious plot to wreak havoc, terror, and apocalyptic consequences. Can Devi, with help from her supernatural friends, stop it?

The review: Is hosted at Vamped.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Tolong! Awek Aku Pontianak – review

Director: James Lee

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

Translated it means, ‘Help! My Girlfriend is a Vampire’ and this 2011 Malaysian film uses the myth of the Pontianak to create a romantic comedy that, in a strange old way, owes a very tiny debt to Shaun of the Dead.

What I did find was that knowing a little of the Pontianak myth in advance is useful – there is little exposition of the mythology within the film, with an assumption that you’d already know. There was one piece of lore within that I found confusing.

Ina the Pontianak

It starts with a scene above a city and in a sports car sit Bob (Zahiril Adzim) and his girlfriend Ina (Faezah Elai). He has just received a big promotion at work and opens up a ring box containing a garishly large stoned engagement ring. He asks her to marry him and she says yes. As he slips the ring upon her finger her hand becomes haired with black nails and she reveals herself to be Pontianak. He awakens with a start.

Red Cornetto, borrowed from Shawn?

He sits with his friend and roommate Pian (Sufian Mohamed), who is playing on a playstation and picks up a controller and joins in. Given Pian doesn’t work you can see the Shaun of the Dead nod, I hope, but there is another little moment later. It seems Bob has regular dreams where Ina turns into a Pontianak. He goes to pick her up from work but is late, due to car troubles, and breaks down forcing her to get a cab. Later that evening they go for a meal where, long story short, he proposes and she dumps him (with Pian hanging around nearby). She calls up new fella Eddy (Jehan Miskin) who leaves the friends with a black eye each. Pian buys an ice lolly for Bob and gets a cornetto type one himself – the other Shaun of the Dead reference, which features red wrapped cornettos in it and blue cornettos in sister film Hot Fuzz.

co-workers together

Bob is a nice guy but a doormat. He and his team at the advertising agency where he works are put upon by their bosses, given rubbish jobs and the bosses take all credit from them. He bought his tired car as Ina disliked his moped and he moved to an apartment he couldn’t afford because she preferred the area. He decides to move to an apartment more in his price range and, as well as the area being home to a lot of immigrants – this indicates that there might be an issue in Malaysia with the perception of immigration but, to a man, all the immigrants we meet seem really nice – the apartment is allegedly haunted. Once they have moved in they meet their neighbours, sisters Maya (Sazzy Falak) and Liyana (Liyana Jasmay).

the evil Pontianak

Bob and Maya start getting close but the sisters are Pontianak. Actually they are good Pontianak, who do not feed from humans and are trying to find a cure for their curse. Their other sister Nadia (Nurul Wahab), who comes into the story later, is a bad Pontianak who feasts on humans. Of course Bob’s bosses and Pian discover the truth and try to save Bob, whilst Maya has a massively positive influence on him, making him take the respect he is owed.

Maya in pontianak form

Lore wise, as I said, it is taken for granted that you will know certain things about Pontianak. They can fly and change shape. They reveal their true form when they remove the nail from their head/hair – this point wasn’t clear. Maya’s nail seems to be in her head, whilst Nadia's seems to be through her hair, like a pin. Traditionally a nail in the head can be used to restrict a Pontianak’s power and turn her into a beautiful woman. However, a nail in the head of an evil Pontianak, in this, will kill it. This was a little confused and could have done with explanation in dialogue.

Sazzy Falak as Maya

The sisters have been cursed and they discover that the way to break the curse, and thus return them to mortal form, is through true love.

This wasn’t bad but it was light weight all told. The comedy was okay but not, for me, laugh out loud funny but Zahiril Adzim made a good, geeky lead. The film did, incidentally, contrast Malay and Western vampires, in passing.

5 out of 10.

At the time of review there is no imdb page.

Antoo Fighter: Amukan Drakulat! – review

Director: Azizi Chunk Adnan

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

This Malay film was really quiet odd. On the surface a kind of Ghostbusters rip off using various monsters; some of these were recognisably Pontianak (including a transvestite Pontianak (Rabiatul Adawiyah)) and a kyonsi (Azron Othman). Others were various types of ghosts/monsters from different mythologies.

Awie as Drakulat

The leader of the monsters was Drakulat Van Listerooy (Awie) who had fangs, pointed ears a long extending third arm (when wished for) and giant bat wings. Now, there is no IMDb page for the film (at the time the article was written) but there was a Malaysian Wikipedia page, which can be found here. This confirmed that Drakulat was a vampire – of Dutch origin apparently.

mystic beams from crescent staffs

It also gave a breakdown of characters. There are the crescent warriors, who are the good guys. Now, crescent will be two fold, firstly these demon hunters carry spears topped with a crescent symbol that fires mystic energies to defeat the antoo (the monsters). Secondly there are a couple of comments through the film that indicate that the good guys are Muslim, nothing wrong with that and it isn’t in your face.

the chosen

More problematic was the thought, offered by the Wikipedia page, that the bad guys were the council of Zion. Did this mean that the filmmakers associated the monsters with Jews? Was it simply another movie reference, perhaps to the Matrix? I don’t know but I can say that there is nothing anti-Semitic actually displayed in film (that I noticed), though the thought that it might be anti-Semitic at a conception level is disturbing. The film itself follows Poh Jee (Radhi OAG) as he discovers that he, and four others, are the new generation of demon fighters – selected through a birth mark.

Poh Jee in action

The film actually started with Drakulat and his minions being defeated decades before and trapped in a box. They had been trying to use a virgin sacrifice (of a girl related to Drakulat) to summon Lord Sharon, Satan’s son, into the world. In the modern day some children find the box and release the monsters who promptly start terrorising the neighbourhoods until taking over the KL Tower in Kuala Lumpur. Poh Jee rounds up the new group of demon hunters and rushes to the rescue of Delyla (Delyla Adnan) the new sacrifice and Poh Jee’s crush.

kyonsi

That skips a lot of film that, truthfully, does little anyway. To me the filmmakers should have jumped to the demon fighting quicker and maybe cut down the running time which was at least 30 minutes too long. The comedy didn’t work for me – though that might be cultural – however I felt it relied much, too much on a slapstick comedy found in both the physical humour and a slapstick narrative. Little in film errors didn’t help, for instance their in film guru, Guntur (Usop Kopratasa), tells them that humans (and all natural life) are water based but demons are nitrous dioxide based, or N2O – hence he has named them antoo and yet Poh Jee inherits a book earlier in the film about how to fight antoo.

I hate to say it, but this one did little for me. However it is the only film that I am aware of that brings together Pontianak, kyonsi and vampires. 3 out of 10.

Voodoo Nightmare – review

Director: Djinn

Release date: 2001

Contains spoilers

The trouble with the Blair Witch Project is that every man and his dog thought they could emulate it and, let’s be honest, the original was pretty much pants – a success of viral marketing over content.

This owes a stylistic nod to the Blair Witch Project (though most of the hand held camera work would have been done by an unnamed party rather than one of the characters) and, if I tell you that it’s other name is Return to Pontianak then you’ll know what it is about… ish… You see a legend at the head tells us that Pontianak is a village. It is only later that it makes reference to the traditional Malay spirit (though writer/director Djinn seems to change the rules).

Hiep Thi Le Aas Charity

It begins with a girl, Charity (Hiep Thi Le) dreaming of a beggar woman, it appears. Later we discover that this is a dream of her birth mother and she has left for Malaysia to find her as she has had a premonition. What this means is never really answered, it is just the flimsy context to get her there.

Luc and Uzi

She is searching for her with the help of Raymond (Victor Khong), internet geek, whom she met online as he designed her website. He is an annoying, overly cheerful, nerd with a tendency to histrionics. He has invited along, to Charity’s chagrin, his friends Luc (Steve Banks), described in film as a “whinging English vodka-Redbull addict” and boy he can whinge. There is Uzi (Eleanor Lee) an ex-stewardess and rave junky and finally there is the “dubious” guide Eye (Fadali).

Fadali as Eye

Seriously, a group of more annoying people you have never met. You literally pray for the Pontianak to come and get them and put them out of our misery. However, for the first half of the film nothing happens, bar them getting more and more and more annoying as they trek through jungle trying to find a village. During this time Luc disrespects what I think was meant to be a grave marker – is this the cause of their woes, who knows? More pertinently, who cares?

evil eyes

Eventually they find a hut but no one is about. Raymond takes it on himself to nosey around inside and misses the evil looking eyes watching him. It turns out to belong to an old man who doesn’t seem to like his hut being snooped around. As it is, whilst Eye tries to get directions off him we discover that Luc has a bit of a fever.

water turns to blood

He goes to get a drink, scoops some water into a glass and it turns to blood. When he drops it, it is water again but he forgets his hallucination as he sees something under the hut. Uzi can see nothing but then a girl appears. She seems distant and eerie and the old man drags her into the hut and beats her. Eye has discovered that if they follow a stream it’ll lead to civilisation.

Raymond decapitated

Well, Eye vanishes off with all Raymond’s gear and so they go off randomly (and yet in the right direction) into the jungle to look for him. Suddenly all the bad activities a horror film promises are crammed into the film. They find Raymond decapitated for a start off – we then see (in a vision) that the attack was carried out by the old man. Next we see him casting a black magic spell.

the Bomoh

Actually the old man is (the legend at the end tells us) a Bomoh (or witchdoctor) and, despite that the Bomoh and Pontianak traditions don’t normally cross over, according to the film Pontianaks are women killed in childbirth (or through abuse) who return as undead controlled by Bomoh. His spell takes over Luc, who vomits insects and then dashes Uzi’s brains out. We then see Luc gutted, presumably by the Pontianak who in turn then gets Eye. The Pontianak’s face going yucky when she attacks.

pontianak

As for Charity… well you’ll have to sit through the film like I had to. Annoying characters and hinted motivations (was it because of the grave marker, entering the hut, witnessing the beating or just malevolence that caused the Bomoh to act the way he did? What did Charity’s ‘vision’ have to do with it?), horrible camera work, poor acting and little to no action through most of the film (and no tension either). Poor. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.