Satan's Slaves [Blu-ray]

Good story. Original but not scary; not to me. Not even. It is a supernatural film bc there were ghosts, etc. But there were no jump scares and the 'entities' or 'dead ones' were not scary looking or acting either. It was all very mild compared to other I have seen. I would say I have seen most of them in English and a good many foreign scary movies. I don't recall any scenes that let up to something scary happening either. But I would guess that folks that do not watch a bunch of scary movies might be scared by some of dead ones.The acting was great. Even the dubbing was decent enough. I purposefully do not try to pay attention to see if what their mouths are saying match the dubbing. And I do not think it would have been scarier if I had watched it with subtitle insteads.This would probably be rated a PG movie. Maybe PG13 bc of the dead people? I don't know what makes a movies PG13. There was not swearing, no sex, no nudity, no violence that I can remember. There was an accident that was a little graphic. And someone was killed but they only showed the bloody shirt and the person looking like they were about to die.But the acting was well done. The story was well paced and well written. The music was not annoying. The family was a close family. I did care about what happened to them. I did not feel it was boring even though there was nothing particularly scary. I give points on scary movies based on how scary, how interesting, the acting, the music. Two of my stars are for scariness. So I gave them 3 for the other criteria in my judging system.

Indonesian horror is from Impetigore writer/director Joko Anwar and tells of the ailing matriarch (Ayu Laksmi) of the Suwono family. When she passes, strange things start to occur around the house, causing eldest daughter Rini (Impetigore‘s Tara Basro) to look into her mother’s past. Rini finds to her horror that her mother was part of a Satanic sect and the price of what benefits she gained from it are to be paid to that sect in the form of the youngest child in the family, little Ian (Muhammad Adhiyat).Anwar directs again from his own screenplay, this time based on a 1980 Indonesian horror of the same name. It’s a spooky film with some offsetting visuals, such as ghastly specters and the dead rising from their graves. It’s not quite as consistently intense as Impetigore and seems like about ten minutes, or so, longer than it needs to be, but it is more of a slow burn that comes to a very creepy last act and climax. The benefit of a slower pace is that we get to know the members of this family well enough to care, especially Rini, and we find out the details of the hidden part of their mother’s life gradually, as they do. Anwar also plays with the motivations of some of his spectral guests in the family’s modest home, providing some interesting twists. The writer/director gets really good work out of his cast, including the kids and especially leading lady Tara Barso, as a young woman forced to take over as head of a supernaturally embattled family. Anwar juggles a fairly large amount of characters and it helps that his strong storytelling skills are at work. Can this clan keep together and save little Ian?…and themselves?…the flick is worth a look to find out the answer. On the technical side, the visual and make-up FX are well done and provide some very chilling entities to populate this supernatural thriller and Anwar’s visual eye keeps things atmospheric and unsettling.This is a spooky and atmospheric film from a filmmaker who is proving he is good at supplying both scares and story. Director Joko Anwar and leading lady Tara Basro are also proving to be a formidable team as they were in Impetigore. If you liked Impetigore, you’ll probably like this!-MonsterZero NJ

There’s nothing particularly original to be found here (and there’s nothing wrong with that), but it’s entertaining. This film is well-paced, rich with jumpscares, and good phases from scary to intriguing to more action in the end.Writer (in part) and director Joko Anwar (Halfworlds, Ritual) approaches this Indonesian remake of the Satanic panic era classic Satan’s Slave (1980) in the same 1981 setting as the original. With her father struggling with the family finances, Rini (Tara Basro; Halfworlds) must be strong for her younger siblings and her terminally ill mother who is bedbound, practically mute and weakly chiming her bell for aid.When the audience is in the horrorverse, there’s something particularly unnerving about bedbound terminally ill characters. Do they see evil spirits we cannot perceive? Are they the evil or possessed by an evil we should fear? I’m reminded of Annabelle: Creation (2017) and Pet Sematary (1989) in concept. Whatever the case, it lays a foundation of dread.At first the horror imagery is typical to Asian haunting horror: horrified expressions on the face of the dead, creepy smiling ghostly figures, a well echoing dripping water and, of course, the continued ringing of the bell… after the mother’s death. For convenient flavor, Rini’s family lives next to a cemetery and the family’s poverty results in their loss of phone service as the father must travel for work—in combination, these factors credibly cultivate a sort of “cabin in the woods” isolation even though Rini seeks advice from other locals. In their father’s absence, they begin to suffer additional loss and trauma at the hands of an evil presence.There’s nothing particularly original—in fact, one particular scene will remind you way too much of The Ring (2002) and the “living dead-ish” entities behave as we’ve seen them a dozen times before devoid of nuance. We enjoy standard jumpscare fare and, more often than not, we see it coming—but with good execution it feels far more fun than formulaic. In fact, the scares become quite frequent providing a jumpy-fun pacing to the film (it reminded me of Dead Silence (2007), but more eventful and considerably less terrifying).The first act is heavily jumpscare-biased, then we shift into a more plotty portion of the film to pave the way for the quite eventful third act. We go over an hour with essentially no blood or gore, but there is one rather outstanding and gruesome death scene involving a truck which totally took me off guard (I was impressed). The effects focus more on the ghostly/undead appearance of these Asian deadite entities in the beginning—and they look good. Again, nothing particularly original and of highly familiar gestalt, but well-executed.This was a fun watch and, for all the action and jumpiness, I’d recommend it for a low stakes Saturday night.