There’s always room in my life for Indonesian horror - or action - or whatever. Like Thailand it’s pretty wild country when it comes to imagination and culture - and maybe most of all: colorful and always with this constant fascination of death. 87 % of the population is Muslims, which of course have set the tone and path for their genre movie industry. It’s not that different from American and European films from the same time, maybe a little less subtle - but I think that has more to do with the experience of storytelling in filmmaking and with a higher integrity regarding western entertainment influences. Satan’s Slave is a brilliant little flick, which actually both manages to be creepy and well-made, not at all corny like some of its counterparts.
Troubled teenager Tommy (hey, that’s alliteration!), his father and sister mourns the death of the mother in the family, but the pain won’t go away yet, because one night Tommy meets his mother. She’s floating outside the window and want’s him to join him! Wisely he doesn’t follow her, but it starts a series of supernatural incidents and soon they’re all in danger from someone who wants them very, very bad. And the living dead is just around the corner…
Let me see if I get this right: Satan’s Slave kinda begins like Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm and keeps that special atmosphere and some details - from locations to the eerie, ambient electronic score - but then kinda stays away from being a total rip-off. You can notice some ideas, like a seemingly invincible force who controls dead people, but it uses them in different ways and that makes it a whole lot more classy. I might be wrong, but I felt the presence of Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot also, which I’m sure it’s a conscious decision from the filmmakers.
While the melodrama between the horror can be a bit generic, not bad though, the rest is SO good. The use of wide shots, framing of faces and movements reminds me of John Carpenter. It’s stylish and intelligent and downright freaky here and there. I’m not scare of the dark, but these albino-style living deads could fuck around with my mind if I just wanted it. I’m very impressed the director and special effects people went with a more simple, not campy look of the undead beasts.
Regarding the acting it’s also quite subtle. W.D. Mochtar shows up and is good as usual. That guy seemed to have starred in every single Indonesian genre movie from the seventies and up! The guy playing Tommy was also good, which is a bit odd to see: a good performance from an Asian kid actor! Or kid and kid, well, he can’t be more than 15-16 at least! How about gore then? Not much, there’s some blood, but I promise you this film doesn’t need gore or blood to be good. Not that I mind those ingredients, but sometimes I can live without it.
The best way to see this film is on BCI’s DVD Eastern Horror - released in four or five double features and a box with ten films. The quality, compared to a good DVD or even blu-ray is downright atrocious - but after a while you get used to the VHS quality - and hey, it’s in widescreen, uncut (what I cans see) and with the original language track! Not bad!
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