directed by the mo brothers

gorylah pictures/merah productions/guerilla visual movement/nation pictures/mediacorp raintree pictures

Good Lord. If you want blood, you’ve got it with this insane Indonesian production. I barely even know where to begin talking about this gonzoid picture, other than to say I’ve got a new entry on my list of favorites. The setup isn’t anything special – a group of friends gives a stranger a ride home, and she invites them in so her mother can thank them – but the direction is. Unrelenting, intense and horrific and bleak and sadistic, it only begins to let in a little air after it reaches a sort of tipping point later in the proceedings and inevitably skews toward the blackly humorous – likely because little other option existed. Be forewarned, however, that before that happens it’s little but a trip through a special hell, with something to appall just about everyone. A masterpiece of the sick and twisted little corner of the film world it inhabits, this one’s gonna stick around the old memory banks for a while.

why did i watch this movie?

When I was reading up on Kuntilanak, I noticed this title, as Julie Estelle stars in both.

should you watch this movie?

I enthusiastically encourage everyone to watch this movie immediately. You will, however, need a strong stomach and an unhealthy appetite for, yes, the macabre.

highlight and low point

Shareefa Daanish and Arifin Putra are ridiculously evil as Dara and Adam, respectively, but picking my favorite aspects of this flick would entail a really long list. So I guess I’ll just say PROJECT: IMMORTAL SNAKE and leave it at that, unless you’d like me to laud the superlative chainsaw usage. The biggest drawback I can think of offhand is that I found myself wondering when I last saw such an excessively blood-soaked celluloid marvel. Dead Alive, maybe.

rating from outer space: a