Pengabdi Setan (2017)
Pengabdi Setan (2017)
Pengabdi Setan, also known as Satan's Slave, is an Indonesian horror movie written and directed by Joko Anwar who also worked on other Indonesian horror films such as Perempuan Tanah Jahanam (Woman of the Damned Land aka Impetigore, 2019) and Ratu Ilmu Hitam (The Queen of Black Magic, 2019).
In the film, the matriarch who fell ill more than 3 years ago passed away under mysterious circumstances, setting a chain of horrific motions haunting her children Rini (Tara Basro), Tony (Endy Arfian), Bondi (Nasar Anuz), and Ian (Muhammad Adhiyat). Set in the early 1980s, Joko Anwar sets the mood with dim lighting and plot twists, evoking a building sense of suspense that climaxes into a horrific peak involving fertility cults and zombified pocongs.
Aside from the riveting storyline and awesome cast and crew, one thing that stuck with me is the soundtrack. Throughout the entire movie, snippets of Kelam Malam, performed by The Spouse and introduced as the matriarch's hit song early in the film, further set the mood playing throughout the movie with its haunting melody and suggestive lyrics.
The easter egg ending features Darminah who, for those who don't know, appeared in the 1980 version of Pengabdi Setan making this movie a remake, though some suggest it is also a prequel given that the 2017 setting was 1981 while the 1980 setting was 1982. Regardless, the seductive ending scene set against Diwajahmu Kulihat Bulan by Sam Saimun also set the mood for the sequel which we will see soon this year in 2022.
Happy Hauntings!
More Posts from Shamrockskullscarabs and Others
Imagine yourself as an insect, a water beetle to be exact, swimming around searching for food when all of a sudden, a giant frog swallows you whole! What would you do then?
For Regimbartia attenuata, the only option besides accepting your fate and dissolving quietly is to search for the rear-end exit. Shinji Sugiura, an ecologist at Japan's Kobe University, discovered that these amazing beetles actively escape death by swimming through a predator's digestive tract and exiting from its butt, intact with no observable damage.
Regimbartia attenuata escaping from the vents of Pelophylax nigromaculatus and Hyla japonica (4× speed). Video credit to Current Biology
While rare, the phenomenon is not unheard of as certain snail species are known to seal their shells shut and await excretion to survive being eaten by birds or fish. However, what makes this particular research fascinating is that the prey (water beetle) is actively escaping the predator (frog) rather than passively waiting for the digestion process to be complete.
Hypothetical escape route of Regimbartia attenuata through the frog digestive system. Photo credit to Kobe University.
For further reading, you can click on the following link for the research article published in Current Biology on August 3, 2020.
The Tenement - a menace to all by Udo J. Keppler, (1872 - 1956) The illustration shows the spirits of alcoholism, opium, dens, prostitution, gambling and street crime, as well as the figure of Death, issuing from a tenement house
Suitable for inducting future children of the night into the horror genre, for horror fans new and old, this film is an essential viewing featuring horror icon Bela Lugosi in the titular role of Dracula.
Overall, this film has quite the suspenseful cinematographic atmosphere though it can feel a bit stiff and disconnected at times. Some of my favorite scenes involve Dracula getting out of his coffin under his creepy crypt or when the camera focuses on his eyes when he compels his victims. Honestly, Lugosi brings out the Stranger Danger!!! bell warnings every time he appears on the screen.
Aside from Bela Lugosi, I personally felt that Dwight Frye and Edward Van Sloan, who played Renfield and Dr. Van Helsing respectively, really stole the show with their acting especially Frye when portraying Renfield's madness. Sloan really brings out Dr. Van Helsing's confidence in dealing with Dracula with his arsenal of crosses and wolfsbane.
The entire movie is roughly over an hour so it's a good pick for a quick horror sesh and as I've said before, due to the lack of blood and at most, suggestive biting from Dracula himself, the movie can be a good introduction to young minds ready to be warped into the horror genre.
Happy Hauntings!
do you ever just accidentally stumble across the most delicious sentence in the middle of a book and are forced to stop just to revel in its beauty??
If you love the multitude of horrors found at the SCP wiki, you'll enjoy this short horror comic by Azam Raharjo, inspired by our resident strangler, SCP-173 him/her/itself (??). You can check the comic out and his other works here. His Twitter link is also available here for a follow.
Zombie setting where the undead are drawn towards unhygienic scents, so survivors constantly bathe to avoid being eaten.
Zombies are docile when adorned with flowers.
Settlements overgrown with herbs and flora.
Barely any banditry; everyone is focused on farming and gathering.
Different human factions and towns named after flowers like Lilies, Orchids, Roses, etc.
Instead of immediately killing an infected survivor, they’re given special funeral rites - the zombie is covered with flowers to keep them calm, and allowed to walk out from the settlement to join the hordes.
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