Label: Severin FilmsRegion Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 92 Minutes
Audio: Indonesian DTS-HD MA Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Sisworo Gautama Putra
Cast: Ruth Pelupessi, W.D. Mochtar, Fachrul Rozy, Simon Cader, Siska Widowati, H.I.M. Damsyik, Diana Suarkom, Doddy Sukma
Indonesian supernatural shocker Satan's Slave, directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra, The Warrior), is a spooky slice of horror that marries Western horror tropes with Muslim/Islamic philosophy to significant effect, opening with a mournful funeral and burial of the mother of teenager Tomi (Fachrul Rozy). afterwards it seems that perhaps his mother's spirit is not quite at peace, as he is visited at night by the ghoulish looking corpse of his mother who floats to his window and beckons him to follow her into the woods.
Both he and his older teen sister Rita (Siska Widowati, Escape from Hellhole) ignore the wishes of their father, Mr. Munarto (W.D. Mochtar, Mystics In Bali), who chastises them for going out instead of staying home so soon after her death, not for religious reasons though as you might think, but the family is depicted as being non-religious people, which works against them. They're young and Rita is too busy dancing into the night at clubs with her boyfriend Herman (Simon Cader, Jaka Swara), while Tomi spends time riding his dirt bike, reading horror mags, and hanging with friends. It's one of these friends that tells him to seek the advice of a local fortune teller - who reminded me a bunch of The Oracle from The Matrix (1999), so much so I have to wonder if it was an influence on The Wachowskis - who tells him to protect himself against evil by arming himself with the black arts, which seems like strange advice non it's face, but maybe when I was a teen I might have gone that route, too.
To that end Tomi goes to a bookstore in the neighborhood looking for more information on black magic and it's practice, but when the shopkeeper sees him looking into the subject matter he pulls him aside and tells him he doesn't need that sort of influence, that he need to pray, to find God, and that any person or household that does not pray and believe in God is only inviting evil to enter that house, and it soon becomes clear that because Tomi's family are not the practicing Muslims that evil has definitely invited itself into their home.
Around this time a mysterious housekeeper arrives at the home, Darminah (Ruth Pelupessi, The Snake Queen), who says she was sent by a friend, and after her arrival things get much worse for their family, and those around them. The family's longtime servant, the asthmatic Karto (H.I.M. Damsyik, The Queen of Black Magic), begins rapidly declining in health, and talks of ending his life to stop his suffering, and the daughters boyfriend Herman, who spoke ill of Darminah and suggests that the family should seek the help of a shaman, is involved in a horrific freak motorcycle accident, and the ghoulish white-skinned, white-eyed mother returns to the house to torment the family.
At some point things get so bad that the skeptical Mr. Munarto seeks the help of a shaman, who arrived and performs a ceremony to rid the house of the evil presence plaguing it. During the ceremony a wind seeps through the house, glass begins to shatter, and the house starts to rumble. During the wild event a glass chandelier breaks free from the ceiling and begins to and the shaman like a flying guillotine. All this while Tomi has been having satanic nightmares that lead him to believe that maybe Ms. Darminah is evil presence in the house, and sure enough he's right, later on he follows her when she leaves the house at night and witnesses her performing a satanic ritual to resurrect his mother at her grave, with the decaying undead Herman and Karto keeping her company at the cemetery.
The film is an enthralling bit of atmospheric horror, it has a mysterious foreign quality about it that I found hard to put a finger on, maybe because of the cultural differences, it certainly feels foreign while still offering plenty of Western style horror tropes. Something that kind of bugged me was the way the characters would under-react to the weird, scary stuff that was happening alla round them. If it were me I would have been shitting my pants, but they kind of nonchalantly go in with their day as if it were no big whup, which if I am being generous about it sort of reminds a bit of Phantasm (1979), which similarly features a family dealing with some strange stuff in a weird way, but if I am less generous it's more likely a reflection of the amateurish acting in the film, either way it still worked it's charms on me.
The films has a lot of generic western horror influences in it, though a few scenes are more specific in their appreciation of specific films, particularly a scene lifted straight from Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot (1979), with the ghoulish ghost of the mom floating up to her son's window on a waft of creepy fog and knocking at the window, but it's still got a vibe all it's own. This is not a gory film by any means, but it's got some cool bloody wounds and ghoulish make-up effects there at the end when it becomes something of a spook-tacular fright show, and it is drenched in atmosphere from start to finish, all of it coming together to make for a rock-solid early 80's fright film.
Audio/Video: Satan's Slave (1980) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Severin Films in 1080p HD and framed in 2.35:1 widescreen. Scanned from the original camera negative; The image is dang near pristine with nary a blemish to detract from it, colors are robust and black levels are deep and inky, it's quite a wonderful presentation for this atmospheric Indonesian chiller. Audio comes by way of a serviceable Indonesian DTS-HD MA Mono track with optional English subtitles, is clean and well-balanced, not the most dynamic sounding mono mix but it does the what it needs to.
Extras kick-off with the 9-min 'Satan’s Box Office: Interview with Producer Gope T. Samtani' with the prolific Indonesian producer talking about how Rapi Films started in 1968 by importing American, European and Indian movies before starting their own original productions in 1971, crafting a few action, and horror films, which they then began to export to non-English speaking territories. Eventually they cracked the American and European film markets in the early '90s with the English language film Lady Dragon (1992), which was shot in Indonesia with an American director David Worth (Kickboxer)and American actors, but soon realized that it was an expensive proposition and returned to focusing on Indonesian-language film-making. Years later tastes changed and American audiences were more open to non-dubbed foreign cinema, after the worldwide success of the action film The Raid (2011) Rapi Films saw an opportunity and moved ahead with their remake of Satan's Slave after years of insistence from director Joko Anwar, and are even now in the process of filming a sequel for it.
In the 8-min 'Indonesian Atmosphere: Interview with Screenwriter Imam Tantowi' the writer says he was not a fan of horror films, and in fact had never even watched The Exorcist (1973) because he was too frightened, but enjoyed writing something outside of the mainstream for a change. He says the main gist of the story was his own with some input from both producer Gope T. Samtani and director Sisworo Gautama Putra (The Warrior), saying the film was more influenced by other films than any local Indonesian ghost stories, but says it's got plenty of "Indonesian atmosphere". He's quite complimentary to the visuals achieved by the director, and says actress Ruth Pellupessi was perfect as the evil entity, saying her face was terrifying, attributing that to her plastic surgery.
'Satan’s Slave Obsession: Audio Interview with Remake Director Joko Anwar' is a 10-min audio-only interview with the director of the Satan's Slave (2017) remake, who saw his first horror films at the tender age of five, and would spend his much of his childhood and teens watching horror at the local cinema and on late-night TV. He highlights the career of director Sisworo Gautama Putra, stuff like the Italian cannibal film inspired Primitives (1980), The Warrior (1981), The Snake Queen (1982), and of course Satan's Slave (1980), the latter of which the director says he saw at a matinee showing when he was eight, the experience not only scarring him at the time, but inspiring him to be a filmmaker. He goes into how he spent years trying to convince Rapi Films to allow him to direct a remake of Satan's Slave, but as he hadn't made a horror film yet he was refused many times. Eventually he made a pair of short horror films (both of which are included on this disc as a bonus!) which he submitted to Rapi Films, and they liked the,, but even before then they chose another director to remake it initially, but eventually he dropped out and Anwar got the gig!
The disc is buttoned up with a pair of short films from remake director Anwar. This single disc release arrives in a spiffy-looking black keepcase, the norm for Severin these days, with a cool-looking sleeve of reversible artwork, the disc itself featuring an excerpt of the key artwork on the sleeve.
Special Features:
- Satan’s Box Office: Interview with Producer Gope T. Samtani ( min)
- Indonesian Atmosphere: Interview with Screenwriter Imam Tantowi (8 min)
- Satan’s Slave Obsession: Audio Interview with Remake Director Joko Anwar (10 min)
- Short Films Inspired by Satan's Slave by Remake Director Joko Anwar: Jenney (2016) (11 min) and Don't Blink (2016) (1 min)
Satan's Slave (1980) is an eerie little Indonesian chiller with some great creepy atmosphere and fantastic frights, making this a spooky supernatural horror film worth checking out for the world cinema lovers out there. Great to see this get a first-rate Blu-ray from Severin Films with a great set of extras to boot.
More screenshots from the Blu-ray:
