I finally got a hold of the movie at Mustafa. Yes, I bought it. I’ve been wanting to watch it properly ever since that fateful day back in my NS life.

We were having night duties and the drivers loaded up Kuntilanak on the dvd player and blasted the 5.1 surround speaker with it. Yeah, they have all that shit in camp. With the rumours of a REAL Pontianak going around in camp, especially in level 3, auditorium, I was thinking that these guys are freakin’ crazy to watch it at night. And so the movie started with only 4 of us, if I remember correctly. Two infocomm guys and two drivers. The intro compelled me to stay and watch it through.

But then roughly 10 minutes into the movie, the rest of the drivers who went out came back. They made a ruckus. But after settling down with their food, cigarettes and hanging up their boots, quite a crowd had gathered at the ‘cage’ to watch the movie.

Then everything went downhill. They started pausing the movie, or slowing it down, NOT at the scary parts, but the sexy bits where Julie Estelle showed slightly more skin than usual. The DVD player has a zoom function and the crazy drivers played with that too. Everyone had a laugh now and then, but one thing for sure, the flow had broken, and I ended up not paying attention to the movie. I think I was half-occupied with playing someone’s PSP.

Ok, enough of that story, on to the…

KUNTILANAK REVIEW

I just finished watching it, so the stuff is fresh in my head. Firstly, the hype that made me wanna watch it properly came from several sources, namely Inkblot, who shares the appreciation of horror and scary movies. And a number of people who swore by the scary-ness of the movie.

As I watched it, I was keeping in mind Inkblot’s warning about the last 15 minutes, and how it’ll scare my balls off. But honestly, I found the little hints in the earlier part of the movie being the scariest parts. Albeit not THAT scary.

The parts when Mademoiselle Kuntilanak first made her glorious apperance… the little sneaks of her torso, hair, feet… her freakish movement… her combing of white hair… hints of her disfigured face… those things got me sitting up and watching intently.

As the story progresses, and I couldn’t really understand the language, I began to slouch down again and merely anticipate that last part Inkblot was talking about.

And so everything went on, and the finale came. The full figure of the ghost was seen. And there were even two little ones coming out to play with Julie Estelle.

The way I see it, once you show everything, you’ve got nothing else to show and for me, I’ll be thinking, “Oh, there’s the whole thing? Hmm, that ain’t so bad.”, instead of something like, “oh shit, that’s the freaking ghost, oh but where’d it go? woah shit… that’s scary!”, which happened in the first few appearances of the Kuntilanak.

And the movie closed its story, with Julie Estelle still having relations with the ghost. And lastly, a cheesy scare trick which again, was expected. Sigh. I really sighed at the end of it. I was expecting a sleepless night looking out my window every now and then and finally sleeping in the hall with the lights and TV on coz I’d be too scared. But instead, here I am, half sleepy and writing this review about a movie which is rather well made but just not scary enough.

Oh and I take back that part I said about it being well-made. There were some weird cuts made in the movie. I don’t know if it’s just the vcd but it sure looked like crap.

I just re-read Inkblot’s review on the movie, and I must say, sorry dude, it’s just not scary enough. I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that the crazy driver dudes spoilt half the movie for me, or because of the fact that I’m expecting too much to be scared.

I do like the whole Mangkujowo (spelling?) mysticism and the Indon-Jawa feel to the whole thing. The sets, head on the mirror, art pieces, depicting that ancient Java look is pretty cool.

Well, this has been a really long review. I think I’ll stop here.
Kuntilanak, a movie that may scare some, but didn’t really work for me. I’m still waiting for the one.

Popularity: 8% [?]