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After the death
of her mother, Sam decides to move into
a boarding house to get away from her stepfather. She
soon hears about the legend of kuntilanak, a ghost
that lives inside a big tree in the cemetery and comes
out from various objects if you call her. The only
thing is, very few can call her with the chant since
you have to be stronger than the kuntilanak to be able
to receive the gift. What Sam doesn't know is that she
all ready possesses the gift and it doesn't take long
before people around her start dying mysteriously.
Indonesia seems to release one new horror flick every
week these days and few of them manage to reach the
international markets. Kuntilanak is one of the more
successful ones along with Jelangkung and since the
sequel is being released in two weeks in Indonesia (at
the same time as Pocong 3 gets released - I wonder who
will win the audience), I thought that it'd be
appropriate for me to check the first one out. To my
pleasant surprise, Kuntilanak, or The Chanting as it's
known as internationally, actually turned out to be a
pretty good movie.
Sam, a young woman, moves into a boarding house after
the death of her mother only to find out about the
Kuntilanak ghost - a ghost that can be used to get
revenge on people or get rich... though I'm not really
sure how the ghost was supposed to make you rich.
Anyhoo, very few people can call upon the spirit by a
chanting, and Sam just happens to be one of them - only
she doesn't know it yet. It doesn't take long before
the tenants that have in some way upset Sam start to
turn up dead with their heads twisted backwards, and
Sam starts to wonder if perhaps she could be the reason
to all of this.
Death Note meets The Grudge in this mildly suspenseful
horror tale that I quite appreciated for the fact that
it spent more time on building up the story and the
characters than on cheap scares (unlike most Indonesian
horror flicks). The occasional scares that we do get
though still aren't very creepy and you can see them
coming from miles away. However, you should know that
I've watched so many ghost stories that very few of
them manage to scare me anymore so I'm sure that some
people may find Kuntilanak to be very frightening.
I enjoyed it for what it was - a classic ghost story
with an interesting twist. Sure, it has its flaws but
its one of the better Indo horror flicks out there.
I don't think that its sequel will manage to beat
Pocong 3 as Pocong 2 was just brilliant but if you're
in the mood for a well-written and interesting ghost
story, you should give Kuntilanak a shot. It's nothing
really special, but it does what its intended to do.
Nothing here.
Very professional sounding score with great atmosphere
suspense music that really lifts the movie up.
Kuntilanak may not be anything out of the ordinary but
when you've seen as many Indo horror flicks as I have,
you'll really appreciate Kuntilanak for its integrity
and originality. It's a stylish and suspenseful ghost
story with an interesting twist to it and for fans of
Asian horror flicks, I will have to say that this is
worth checking out.
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