For as long as there has been Indonesian cinema there have been Indonesian genre movies – starting with The Enchanted Monkey (1926), a whimsical fantasy about two sisters, the younger of whom is dating an ugly monkey. The smile is wiped off the face of the older sister when the monkey turns out to be a handsome god.
The classic Indonesian horror boom of the 70s/80s
The seeds of the first great wave of Indonesian horror were sown among the psychological thrillers of the 1970s. The greatest Indonesia scream queen, Suzzanna (she only needed one name), first appeared in one such entry – 1972’s Birth in the Grave. She went on to star in over 20 horror films, running up until 2008’s Hantu Ambulance. Often playing spirits, ghosts and witches, she remains the most iconic face of Indonesian horror.
As the 1980s dawned, the focus of Indonesian horror switched to a renewed interest in traditional folklore. This led to surge of horror titles, which often placed folk traditions in narrative tension with the more officially-sanctioned Islam. Titles such as Queen of Black Magic (Sudjio, 1980), Mystics in Bali (Djalil, 1981), and Satan’s Slave (Putra, 1982) show folk religion as fundamentally threatening to the local order of things, and frequently linked to female desire. Fortunately, though, there is usually a passing Islamic scholar to set things right before the credits roll.
Ghost With Hole (Putra, 1981), aka Sundel Bolong, features the classic Indonesian concept of the ghost of a woman who died while pregnant. Such ghosts are (as here) portayed as a beautiful woman with long black hair, a white dress, and a gaping wound in their backs. In Ghost With Hole, this vengeful ghost is portrayed by horror icon Suzzanna, out to destroy the model agency workers who scammed her and the thugs who killed her.
Of all these titles, my personal favorite is Queen of Black Magic. Suzzanna stars as scorned lover who is blamed by her ex-fiancé for using witchcraft to disrupt his wedding to the village chief’s daughter. Thrown from a cliff by the villagers, she survives and is coaxed back to health by a local sorcerer who teaches her the very magic of which she was accused. Taking a rather “I’ll show them what a witch looks like!” attitude, she then goes to town on the village. Featuring a friendly Islamic scholar and some rather eyebrow-raising last minute revelations, this is a must-watch.
Exploitation and camp
Picking up the animal-spirit disguised-as-human tradition of The Enchanted Monkey, H. Tjut Djalil made good use of Suzzanna in 1988’s White Crocodile Queen, in twin roles as an sexually free orphan woman and her twin sister – a crocodile queen who lives in a mystical crocodile castle under the lake. When the Crocodile Queen possess the body of her sister to take on local crocodile hunters, the scene is set for enchantment, dismemberment and a watery showdown.
As television drew audiences away from cinemas, is was Djalil who kept Indonesian horror alive by taking an exploitation approach. His Lady Terminator (1989) is perhaps the masterpiece of this era. The Queen of the South Sea, who again lives underwater and likes to seduce and destroy foolish men, is bested by a Dutch traveller. Vowing to return in 100 years to seeks revenge against his great-granddaughter, she disappears into the waves. In modern times an anthropology student seeks out the Queen’s sunken castle, only to be possessed by her spirit. From that point on the film is a bonkers rip-off of the Terminator, as the reincarnated Queen eschews traditional witchiness in favour of black leather and an Uzi. Unapologetically ripping off numerous scenes from Cameron’s original (a police station siege, eyeball surgery, emerging from an inferno) this is one of the great grindhouse flicks of all time.
If you enjoy that, Djalil’s Dangerous Seductress (1995) is also pretty awesome, mixing Djalil’s own Mystics in Bali with The Evil Dead, Basic Instinct, soft-core porn, and Poltergeist in a “let’s see what sticks” approach. Elsewhere Djalil was less successful – 1992’s Demonic Scandal is something of a bore, but it does have a great Raimi-esque scene where numerous syringes levitate off a shelf and fly into the face of a thieving nurse. All set to upbeat pop music!
Indonesian horror’s 21st century resurgence
Joko Anwar
Joko Anwar emerged onto the genre scene with his second movie Kala (2007), an ominous horror-adjacent neo-noir fantasy in the tradition of such films as Dark City. His Lynchian follow-up The Forbidden Door (2009) riffs entertainingly on psychological horror tropes, as the secret of a man’s life is hidden behind a door in his house that his wife keeps locked. Anwar’s Ritual (aka Modus Anomali) (2012) is similarly like an M Night Shyamalan puzzle of a horror film, A amnesiac man wakes up buried alive in a shallow grave in a forest clearing. He’s not alone, but is he being pursued – and if so by whom? After a slow start the second half of this is great, and delivered what you really want from such a film, which is an ending that you don’t see coming.
Later Anwar moved towards modern interpretations of more traditional ghost tales, including his excellent entry in HBO Asia’s Folklore series, A Mother’s Love (2018), featuring traditional child-snatching ghost the Wewe, his reboot of Satan’s Slaves (2017) and its excellent apartment block-set sequel Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion (2022), and 2019’s superb curse-centric folk horror Impetigore.
It’s also worth mentioning Anwar’s excellent entry in the Folklore horror TV series, in which each episode focuses on a different country’s folk horror. Anwar’s A Mother’s Love shows a mother rescuing kidnapped children, only to find that the kidnapper was the dreaded Wewe Gombel, the child-snatching spirit of Indonesian legend. At just 45 minutes, this is well worth tracking down.
The Mo Brothers
Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel started out as co-directors, informally known as the ‘Mo Brothers. Their visceral and intense style is often marked by crunching violence and blood-soaked terror.
Macabre (2009), also known as Rumah Dara, was their feature debut; a bloody tale of a group of friends who encounter a murderous family in a secluded mansion. This is a wonderfully intense spin on the ‘old dark house’ formula, and its escalating hysteria and graphic carnage are hugely recommended for fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – you can really smell the offal (apparently they did use real meat, so the set absolutely stank).
Tjahjanto’s entry in found footage horror anthology V/H/S/2 (2013), Safe Haven, is arguably the best VHS segment to date. His supernatural horror films May the Devil Take You (2018) and May the Devil Take You Too (2020) delve into demonic possession and family curses, drawing comparisons to The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 for their combination of intense scares, playful narratives, and energetic camera movements.
Stamboel’s remake of The Queen of Black Magic aka Ratu Ilmu Hitam (2019) united him with Joko Anwar, who wrote the script. The reworked plot revolves around a man who takes his family to visit the caretaker of the orphanage where he was raised, only to confront terrifying supernatural occurrences – and the titular queen. It’s a testament to Anwar and Stamboel’s talents that this is a rare remake that deserves to stand alongside the original.
The Mo Brothers’ other films tend to lean mores towards action thrillers than horror – the best of them is probably Tjahjanto’s hand-to-hand combat action thriller The Night Comes For Us (2018).
Rocky Soraya
A prolific producer and director, Rocky Soraya is known for his Doll series (The Doll (2016), The Doll 2 (2017), Sabrina (2018)), which tend to build to a decent third act – be warned though, these dolls are more like Annabelle than Chucky as they don’t talk or move around. His The Third Eye series (aka Mata Batin – Mata Batin (2017) and Mata Batin 2 (2019)) pit psychics against malevolent spirits attached to childhood homes – the second film deals with that perennial Indonesian horror setting, the orphanage.
For me, though, his best film is Suzzanna: Buried Alive (2018), co-directed with Aggy Umbara, which is a loose remake/remix of Ghost With Hole (1981) and a love letter to Indonesia’s queen of horror, Suzzanna. Soraya also produced two other Suzzanna films, each reworking a classic Suzzanna tale – Suzzanna: Kliwon Friday Night (Soeharjanto, 2023) and Suzzanna : Santet Ilmu Pelebur Nyawa (directed by Soraya – release tbc).
The future
The 21st century horror resurgence shows no sign of slowing down, with 2024 bringing Joko Anwar’s Siksa Kubur (Grave Torture), Kimo Stamboel’s Badarawuhi Di Desa Penari, Anggy Umbara’s Munkar, Charles Gozali’s Pemukiman Setan, Hadrah Daeng Ratu’s Menjelang Ajal, and many more. Joko Anwar’s series Nightmares and Daydreams is a supernatural sci-fi show that debuts on Netflix on June 14, 2024.
Where to start with Indonesian horror: Classic era
Unfortunately it’s hard to find these legitimately streaming on western services, but you might be able to find them via other routes (including, sometimes, YouTube).
- Queen of Black Magic (Sudjio, 1980)
- Satan’s Slave (Putra, 1980)
- Mystics in Bali (Djalil, 1981)
- Ghost With Hole (Putra, 1981)
- Lady Terminator (Djalil, 1989)
Where to start with Indonesian horror: 21st century resurgence
- Macabre (Tjahjanto & Stamboel, 2009) – Unfortunately not currently streaming anywhere I could find
- Satan’s Slaves (Anwar, 2017) – Shudder
- May the Devil Take You (Tjahjanto, 2018) – Netflix
- Suzzanna: Buried Alive (Soraya & Umbara, 2018) – Netflix
- Impetigore (Anwar, 2019) – Shudder
- The Queen of Black Magic (Stamboel, 2019) – Shudder
- May the Devil Take You Too (Tjahjanto, 2020) – Shudder
- Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion (Anwar, 2022) – Shudder
Whitlock&Pope 