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Seven teenagers
are making an independent horror
movie for a festival, choosing an old, abandoned house
as a location. What they don't know is that their souls
mean a lot to the house which demands six souls as
sacrifice. But if six of them have to die, then what
about the seventh?
The film opens with a scene where cops are probing an
old house, drawing a police line while TV reporters
look busy reporting the scene. Several minutes later in
the movie, when the first dialogue is uttered by the
news reporter, I've already got a hunch that this
will be a movie with awful dialogue and script. And
what a hunch I had! Anyway, we'll get into that
later on...
The opening credit sequence is quite promising
actually, with yellow and rough animated graphics
from the movie scene, giving it that “grind house” look.
When more dialogues are uttered however, I start to
hear this voice shouting in my head “Bad script alert!
Get out while you can!”. For instance, since when do
TV reporters state in their report on gruesome killings
that “.. their deaths seem abnormal..” Sheesh!.
At first when I saw the posters, promotions, and
synopsis I thought that this would be some kind of teen
slasher movie. This sounded very promising since
Indonesia rarely produces these movies. Psikopat was
one, but based on many reviews (including AnthroFred's
here at Slasherpool) that movie wasn't even worth being
called a movie. But unfortunately, Enam is anything but
a slasher movie. It's just another typical teen horror
that's trying so hard to look serious that the outcome
proves otherwise.
So let's talk a little about the characters. The boys
first: Eric, a selfish, dominant, authoritarian macho
boy director. David, a very indifferent character,
nothing special. Then Tian, another mediocre
indifferent character who also brings his fiancée.
And finally Bowo, a fat-ass clown who later surprises
by giving quite the dramatic performance in the end.
Now meet the females: Maya, Eric's girlfriend, your
typical stupid sexy chick. Novi, Tian's fiancée,
another stupid sexy chick who is slightly smarter, and
finally the main character Casey, the tough chick.
Overall, just another set of typical characters you
see in most teen horrors everywhere. In fact, it's
rather hard to even remember the characters' names!
All of them are most likely fresh graduates from teen
TV series or from the modelling industry. They should
be appreciated for their efforts but I think that
they're hard attempts were in vain – how could they
act properly if they don't even have good dialogues
and a solid script to work with?
A quite worthy performance is actually given by the
supporting cast, Barry Prima who performs as Su'ud,
the haunted house watchman. Yes, it's Barry Prima, the
one and only Jaka Sembung of the 1980s (mostly known
outside Indonesia as The Warrior). It's such a pity
that he's not given more roles here, and his dialogues
are filled with clichés. His character should've been
developed more. He's still got the look. He even looks
somewhat creepy in the beginning of the movie. So why
not use him more? O heck, he could've become a great
slasher! But that would likely result in a bigger
payroll that the producer is apparently not willing
to afford. Just like other mainstream horror movies,
they've utilized fresh, inexperienced young boys and
girls (TV stars or even magazine models), simply
because their wages are cheap!
Then what's up with the whole movie? Sorry to say this,
but there isn't any worthy plot to be found in here.
As soon as they get into the house they start to
mock and fool with each other, breaking the rules
warned by the watchman, then one by one they start
getting killed. The first death is actually quite
thrilling (on second thoughts, it's not that thrilling),
a badass ghost pulls his leg and his head struck the
floor. Then the whole movie is filled with endless quarrels,
deaths, then more quarrels, some panic and shouting,
but naturally none of them think of how to get out of
the house, or at least dispatch one of them to call
for help! So who does the killing? Apparently it's the
restless ghost of the house that demands sacrifices
of 6 souls (Enam means Six - original title huh?). So
how does she look, ladies and gentlemen? Well, let's
give a big hand to Sadako of The Ring and Kayako of
Ju-On who once again proudly present their ugly heads
just like they do in countless of recent Indonesian
horror movies! Yeah, flashy movement of this
long-haired corpse moving with broken zombie-like
movements, and the director thinks this rip-off idea of
showing ghost would scare the audience, gimme a break!
Can't these film makers ever think of creating more
original ghosts for crying out loud!
The scary moments may be intended from the paranoia and
desperation experienced by the teens (just as they
mentioned in their dialogue about the impression
they want to get from the audience of their horror
movie!) Unfortunately it's more like stupid quarrels
that don't lead anywhere and invites boredom quicker
as the movie continues. The deaths are not very
dramatic either, only some blood, drowning, stabbing,
strangling, sewn mouth (but I guess it's been done
somewhere else in other movies). Nevertheless, the
final climax might be worth some credit and overall
the "plot" is handled neatly from beginning to end.
The setting, though claimed as an old house, is
actually not very convincing as an old house. It's
more like an abandoned, broken, used-to-be luxury
building in residential area that has no haunting
feelings about it at all. The poor lighting doesn't
exactly help either. And since the story takes place
in just one night, then why even bother changing the
characters clothes? What a brilliant thrifty idea to
save production costs. The director, Stephen Odang,
is promoted as the youngest director in Indonesia.
Well, for me, youngest or oldest doesn't matter as
long as they provide good entertainment. This one
definitely fails at delivering just that.
Some blood here and there, a hanged corpse, sewn
mouth and lips, but overall far from what you call gore...
Nothing in particular. Even the dialogue is sometimes
inaudible or tinny-sounding.
Although unoriginal, the ending is rather worth
complimenting to some extent. Nevertheless, it doesn't
save this movie from disaster. Bad screenplay, bad
dialogue, mediocre acting, mediocre unoriginal ghost,
mediocre story, it's just another mediocre Indonesian
teen horror. Overall, nothing special here.
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