Short Film: Vampire {2014}

With the description as an ‘Indonesia Comedy Short Film’, this is just over 12-minutes in length and was released in 2014. It was directed by Fitro Dizianto and whether it is actually a comedy is debatable – there is banter between the two main characters but little in comedic strokes, as it were.

Cap and Pli

It begins with Pli (Aryudha Fasha) watching a horror movie with headphones on. His friend Cap (Eka Wahyu Primadani) sneaks up behind him and grabs his sides making him jump. Cap is hungry but it is late at night and the only place open is the Cak Iwan food hall. Pli isn’t too sure as the place is by the graveyard and, as he points out, it is Friday night (which I assume is a cultural/religious observation). He suggests that the foodhall (which is literally a street vendor under canvas) has a Toyol – the subs explaining that it is a ghost that brings wealth.

heading for food

Pli has a motorbike but suggests he is low on petrol. Cap insists that they use it and it conks out in front of the graveyard. There is movement through the graves and talk of kuntilanak and the Sundel Bolong (which is Javanese ghost similar to the kuntilanak). Suzanna is mentioned, which I assume was a reference to Indonesian horror movie icon Suzzanna. As they push the bike they see an orb flying over the street – Cap mentions UFOs but Pli suggests it is witchcraft.

other customers

As it is they reach the foodhall safely and order food. When it arrives a man (Rizky Ades) and woman (Senja Karisma) come in. The lads’ banter moves to her being attractive and then Pli jokingly suggesting she might be a vampire – in a hijab, retorts Cap. This leads to discussion about a Muslim version of Twilight and the thought of Bella Swan wearing a hijab. Then the conversation steers to her biting a neck and cap states that he’d put a talisman to her forehead – a reference to the Chinese kyonsi, and (what I assume to be) a disparaging joke about the Javanese and their form of vampire apotropaic.

fangs

What I will have to do, however, is spoil the ending. The lads simply leave but then the foodhall cook (Mirza) turns to see the fanged woman feeding off her companion. It cuts to silhouette through the canvas and we see her long tongue shoot out and take the man’s head off. It is quite an amusing piece because the two lads seem to be having genuine fun. We get a broad swath of Indonesian lore mentioned as well as touching on some Chinese and Javanese things and, of course, we see the pervasiveness of the Twilight franchise.

At the time of posting there is no IMDb page.

Shake, Rattle & Roll XV – review

Director: Perci M. Intalan (segment)

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers


The 15th iteration of the long running Filipino horror anthology series and like all the films in the series consists of three standalone films – ish, as in this the character Iggy (John Lapus, Shake, rattle & Roll X & Shake, Rattle and Roll 12) appears in all three segments – in the last segment (the one we are concerned with) bearing a dressing over the neck, the injury which was picked up in the second segment.

The first two segments are Ahas, about a snakewoman, and Ulam, where a young family are fed foods that turn them into monsters. Flight 666 concerns the tiyanak, or the monster in baby form, though the lore is a little different to that we saw in the film Tiyanak.

John Lapus as recurring character Iggy

The flight 666 (no subtlety there) is an additional flight put on for people bumped from a previous overbooked flight. The first passenger we meet is Dave (Matteo Guidicelli) who is on the phone to his attorney. We hear one side of the story and it seems that another party doesn’t want to settle, putting two and two together – as Dave is a Doctor – it seems he acted as an angel of mercy and something went wrong. The next passenger is a raffle winner who thinks the flight is to London – it is to Zamboanga. There are two members of a band, and their stalker fans, and a grandmother (Lui Manansala, Aswang (2011) Shake, Rattle & Roll 2K5) and her pregnant granddaughter Jane (Ria Garcia) amongst others.

Ria Garcia as jane

One of the stewardesses, Karen (Lovi Poe, also Aswang (2011) & TikTik: the Aswang Chronicles), is Dave’s ex – it becomes apparent that she asked him to leave after she lost their baby. One of the passengers, Carlos (Bernard Palanca), seems very nervous. The Grandmother tells Jane to tell people that a foreigner knocked her up. She has a memory of being in the forest and a monster finding her. Suddenly she sees the monster outside the plane, through the window, but was it really there? There’s no time to think as she goes into labour as Carlos (who is in cahoots with Pamela (Nathalie Hart), the other stewardess) hijacks the plane (having got a gun and a bomb on board).

the tiyanak

Dave has to deliver the baby, which seems stillborn, and Jane dies immediately after giving birth. The plane hits very rough turbulence and the body of the baby is lost. People are scratched and then suddenly the transformed baby is doing a wrecking course through the passenger manifest. It is a school teacher who recognises the tiyanak and likens it, amongst other things, to the toyol. Now, in the film Tiyanak we did not know the baby’s origin. In this we know it is the child of a demon (and a maligno in its own right). This fits with Bane’s description: “This vampiric demon from the Philippines is the offspring between a woman and a demon, but it can also come into being when a child dies without having been baptized.” Interestingly the tiyanak is also referred to as a “Child of Janice”. This references a movie but I couldn’t pin down if it was Tiyanak, the main character in that is not called Janice in that but the actress who plays her is. There is also a 1991 Filipino movie entitled Anak ni Janice (Child of Janice), which she was also in.

hunting

Where this differs in lore from the previous film is that the still attached umbilicus cord can be manipulated and acts as a garrotte but, more importantly, the baby is not transforming at will. In this the baby is in human form when the moon is behind clouds and in monster form when the moonlight is visible. It is mentioned that this is like a werewolf. Other than this it claws and bites, certainly goes for the jugular but does not seem to be drinking blood.

the tiyanak's daddy

This is a madcap and fast paced segment with loads stuffed in, unlike the previous segment, which dragged a tad. Together with the first segment this cements the film as a strong entry in the Shake, Rattle & Roll series. Ok, the effects are somewhat hokey but we accept that in these films. John Lapus’ appearance is cameo in this segment (his part in the first segment is much more central than the other two) but is great fun. 5.5 out of 10 for the Flight 666 segment.

The imdb page is here.

Zombies Vs the Lucky Exorcist – review

Director: Jaguar Lim

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

Where to begin?

Despite taking a typically Hong Kong basis for the story this is a Malaysian film that was directed, produced, written by and starred (in multiple roles) Jaguar Lim.

The film is clearly a comedy but that doesn’t really help the viewer as the jokes become rapidly threadbare. The film does feature a profusion of monster types.

finding the grave

A guy and two girls visit a Taoist master (Jaguar Lim) concerned about their grandfather’s grave and the bad luck it is bringing. Lim (as I’ll refer to the Taoist master) has divined all this (or overheard their conversation) and they go out to where grandfather is buried. After some ritual they dig up the coffin (though the night has fallen by the time they finish digging). They open it and see that the grandfather’s corpse has not decayed.

grandfather

Lim decides they should burn the corpse, but the coffin closes itself and so he decides to burn the coffin too. At this point the lid flies off and the kyonsi (referred to in the DVD subtitles as a zombie) rises. They run into an abandoned hut and Grandpa follows them and so (as they have seen it in Hong Kong movies) they try holding their breaths. This seems to work until Lim farts – a gag we have seen far too many times and sums up the humour level in this. We also realise later than bites do not turn in this, as the kyonsi bites Lim’s ass.

knocked back by garlic fart

Suddenly they are aware of a western vampire watching them – they give a genus name of a Dracula. The Dracula and the kyonsi fight – the Dracula wins and then turns on the mortals. It leaps at them as Lim gives out an almighty fart and knocks the Dracula out – he has been eating garlic snacks. This gag is accompanied with a cloud of gas and the level of the humour gets no better really. Lim accidentally stakes the Dracula with his wooden Taoist sword – he is, after all, the lucky exorcist.

suck the life right out of that man

He sends the others home as he looks for his compass, falls and knocks himself out. He awakens in the morning and is looking for a way out of the forest when he meets a girl who seems rather into him – but is in effect a ghost with a rotten face when her true form is revealed. His amour is interrupted (luckily) by a child kyonsi but she does at one point seem to suck his energy from him (making her a vampiric ghost and an energy vampire).

preparing for mystical battle

The child kyonsi belongs to a Taoist (Bobby Yip) who comes to rescue him. Apparently Lim’s ancestors were from China and all had red hair. One ancestor fought with a witch who cursed the line. A descendant (Hidy Yu) of the witch is now hunting Lim. Lim gets further help (after a Buddhist, Feng Shui master and someone who channels the Monkey King all abandon him) from a shaman called Osman (Kieran). The Taoist brings 3 child kyonsi to the fight, the shaman brings 3 Toyol. They fight the witch and (more with luck than anything else) win.

a Malaysian zombie

And we’re half way through the film, which just meanders on with Lim trying to find three kyonsi (perhaps the child ones grown) as we are subjected to plenty of fart, poo and pee gags. We also get a Malaysian zombie at one point and another Dracula and a child Dracula (essentially a kid in the same outfit). It’s a hodgepodge of ideas that never quiet gels into anything coherent. We do get a lot of histrionics and screaming.

a Dracula

What interested me most about the film was the further use of Dracula as a genus (and, given that child kyonsi are a thing in films the logical step to have a child Dracula too). However, the lack of a cohesive story made my interest wane very quickly. Jaguar Lim does have a charm about him but I think he probably needs to concentrate on one thing in the film, rather than be a one man band. The direction was pedestrian and the story weak to non-existent, so perhaps he needs to get scriptwriters and a good director and just be in front of the camera.

boarding the flying banana

The film can’t really get any more than 2.5 out of 10 and I suspect that the fact that the film actually has a flying banana in it (as well as the obvious sexual joke) has bolstered the score for the audacity of the scene. Incidentally, that scene features Lim plus a grandpa and grandma character both played by Lim as well. At the time of review I could find no IMDb page.