When one thinks of gothic horror, it’s usually in terms of aesthetics: lily-white maidens fleeing from dilapidated Victorian mansions clutching candelabras. But there’s substance to the genre that transcends the surface level; the psychological horror, metaphorical and literal phantoms of the past, and repressed sexual ickiness speak to universal conditions that go far beyond the old-money aristocrats that generally fill the genre’s stories. In The Queen of Black Magic, the latest Indonesian spookfest premiering this week on Shudder, the haunted estate seems to have been furnished in the 1970s, and its location in the marshlands outside Jakarta is a long way from the howling moors of England. But its tale of sordid histories and vengeful spirits has enough of the good, gothic stuff to put Daphne du Maurier to shame.
The story opens with Hanif (Ario Bayu) traveling down a remote road with his wife, Nadya (Hannah Al Rashid), and their children (Adhisty Zara, Muzakki Ramdhan, and Ari Irham) to the orphanage where he was raised. There, he reunites with his best friends from childhood to pay respects to the ailing headmaster Mr. Bandi. When they arrive, they find the place nearly deserted, with all the children except for teenagers Hasbi and Rani (Giulio Parengkuan and Shenina Cinnamon) away on a field trip. While the men reconnect and introduce their wives, Rani regales youngest child Haqi with spooky stories about a former nurse who supposedly went crazy and murdered a child with black magic. As the night wears on, however, it quickly becomes apparent that all is not right. Don’t caretakers Maman and Siti (Ade Firman Hakim and Sheila Dara Aisha) seem a little… off? Doesn’t there seem to be an awful lot of evidence that Rani’s stories are more than just campfire tales? And where are all those kids, really?
While the thick, swampy atmosphere of Queen of Black Magic may be a far cry from the genre’s typical icy chill, the story is pure gothic. Even before the supernatural trickery starts, the dread is palpable as soon as Hanif and his family arrive on the grounds. Director Kimo Stamboel (along with writer Joko Anwar, who directed last year’s Impetigore) perfectly captures the unease of walking through a space that has been home to dozens of lost souls, amplified by the haunting, dissonant score by Yudhi Arfani and Fajar Yuskemal. Even if there were no ghosts or black magic, you could probably have just as unnerving a film by simply following young Haqi as he wanders the halls, trying to piece together his father’s strange, sad childhood through old Polaroids and VHS tapes. Not all ghosts, after all, are literal.
But then, of course, some are– this is a Shudder exclusive, after all. While the first act consists of mostly slow-burn and creeping dread, once the gloves come off (with a truly shocking reveal around the half-hour mark) they never go back on. Truth be told, the initial transition from psychological horror to all-too-physical horror is a little rocky, with the characters’ various situations escalating just a little too quickly and marred by some generic CGI (this feels like an old-fart thing to say, and I’m sorry, but if you’re doing body horror you really need to use practical effects). But Stamboel quickly regains his footing, trusting his eye for horrifying tableaux and closer-ever-closer suspense. Simply put, this is an intense little film, and by the time the action reaches its climax it achieves a nearly trancelike state of horrific delirium.
But the real ace up Stamboel’s sleeve is his grasp of the all-too-real. In a film filled with gape-mawed ghosts and possessed self-stapling, the most genuinely shocking reveal (involving a hidden box of photographs) has nothing to do with the supernatural, and everything to do with the evil that humans can– and do– perpetrate against each other with depressing regularity. This is where the film’s roots in gothic storytelling truly blossom into something special. The ghosts here are far more unambiguously real than those that haunt the pages of Henry James and Shirley Jackson, but, as in those stories, they are an extension of the relatable horrors of real life. Our investment is in the safety of the protagonists, but it’s also in unraveling the story of how, exactly, they came into this predicament, and just who the true villains are.
The Queen of Black Magic is not a perfect film. In addition to the aforementioned shaky second act, it suffers from a surplus of characters; I found myself having trouble keeping track of who was alive or dead at any moment, and Hanif’s oldest son seems to literally disappear from the film for a solid half hour toward the middle. But The Queen of Black Magic works on a feverish, almost dreamlike level, and it is the rare horror film that becomes more scary the more it explains itself. There are both images and plot points that will haunt my nightmares for a good, long while, which in my book means it succeeds with flying colors.
Before we go, one final note. As a devotee of horror, and of adventurous cinema in general, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I was unaware going in that The Queen of Black Magic is a remake of a cult classic 1981 Indonesian horror film of the same name. From what I can gather, the plot of the original only tangentially resembles that of this film, but it still looks incredible. It’s easy to trick oneself into believing one has a comprehensive knowledge of cinematic history, but it’s nice to have a reminder that there is a vast world out there that extends far beyond what’s available on your streaming service of choice (though Shudder is certainly doing the lord’s work in this regard; both Impetigore and last year’s excellent Mexican import La Llorona are official entries for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar). If you ever find yourself in a place where you feel like you’ve seen everything, push yourself to do some digging. I promise you, you haven’t.
The Queen of Black Magic
2019
dir. Kimo Stamboel
99 min.
Streaming Thursday, 1/28, on Shudder
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