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| Macabre: Shareefa Daanish goes after Julie Estelle, Patrick Bateman-style. |
Some people like Mo Bros Timo Tjajanto and Kimo Stamboel take the term bloodbath very, very literally. They directed this Indon slasher with a script so soaked in blood, you'll have to check your clothes for stains when exitin the cinema. Macabre a.k.a. Rumah Dara a.k.a. Darah is an intriguin expansion of a 2007 short by the same duo, also starrin Shareefa Daanish as Ibu Dara, a hollow-eyed, kebaya-clad immortal fiend whose preferred method of execution is by electric chainsaw, American Psycho style. This unusual image is the most marketable aspect of the indie flick and it's no wonder she picked up some award for it, despite the performance being laughably one-dimensional. She even upstages Julie Estelle by appearin solo in the poster for Singapore's release. Story? A party of six decide to drop off a troubled young lady at her home, en route to Jakarta. Turns out they're lured into a spooky colonial home with a family who keeps a terrible secret and our lucky lot just walked right into the jackpot.
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| London-born Indonesian actress Shareefa Daanish. |
Clunky dialogue, pacin issues, uneven camerawork.
Perennial wonderment:
Why don't Indon horrors go for the jugular like this one did? Darah rated M18 by the MDA, differs from films of the same ilk because it intentionally takes only token care of character development. It also boasts a remarkable prolonged climax, reminiscent of exploitation flicks of yesteryear where overkill is the way to go. In terms of actin, Kuntilanak girls Julie Estelle and Imelda Therinne show nothing special while the rest of the cast get killed off just in time before they started gettin real irritatin. A wet t-shirt or two couldn't have hurt in a horror movie like this, but since we didn't get that, their uneventful, generic performances are particularly glarin. The paedophilic-lookin, bespectacled killer (Ruly Lubis) and the Edward Cullen wannabe (Arifin Putra) are extra minions who have spin-off potential.
Reminds me of:Jap classic Odishon, Robert Rodriguez' From Dusk To Dawn, that senseless gorefest Feast and the most recent blood-soaked movie I watched, Eden Lake.
Watch out for:
Battle Of The Bitches finale, see pic above.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?So outrageously OTT, they banned it in Malaysia apparently. You can read online that Darah is the first pic from Gorylah Pictures, a new genre label by Eric Khoo of Zhao Wei Films and Mike Wiluan of Infinite Frameworks, focusin on South East Asian horror stories. Decent start for a low budget flick. Hope they're on their way to make many more.★★★
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