Don't Look Back

It’s just my thing. So let it go.

I love movies, and horrors are among my personal favourites. I love the chilly tension feeling and adrenaline rush a horror offers. I love getting home being extra wary and my imaginations run wild. I love cuddling my husband if the movie is really scary like shit. I like!

Since the trailer that shows a flying ghost on the move next to Pierre Andre while he’s driving, I was intrigued. And having been aware that Pierre himself, together with Ahmad Idham are the key people behind this Metrowealth production, I think they don’t look like stupid people so again I felt more invited to watch it. In cinema, no less.

Obviously I went to see it with high expectations. So I did some sms-ing, bought 6 tickets for us namely me and Bigfish, and another four friends, Jimy and his gorgeous wife Zied, Loy and his kawaii wife, Amy. Yes, we are the halal circle of friends, no less.

The movie opens with an exorcism scene at a kampong house, complete with thunder storm, harsh blowing wind and flipping windows. There sat a group of people with the possessed old man lying on the floor. The exorcism seemingly very simple to me, that the Pak Imam managed to pull out the evil spirit from the body quite effortlessly and discarded the ghost into a small bottle.

The bottle is the culprit of the whole thing in the movie.

Pierre Andre is his talented self, playing the role Darma very convincingly whereas the lead actress sucks bigtime. I don’t even know who she is and not worthy enough to be googled.

She’s more wooden than wood itself and she’s playing the dual roles of Rose the dead fiancé, and Rose’s twin sister, Seri. Too heavy for a newcomer like her. She fails to deliver her scripts with life, and her facial expressions are a gone case. She has this one fixed expression that seems to translate to “My twin sister’s dead. So?” kind of face. Simply blur.

The movie is scary at some points that it manages to startle the audience. Especially with the ear piercing shrieks that accompany the appearance of ghost (or the bottle) every single time. In my opinion, the scary scenes rely on the manipulation of sound effects a bit too much that finally it seems OTT to me. Something like trying to hard.

Our prime ghost is the usual kind, female form, fugly long hair, clad in heavily torn white dress. Extremely ugly, but not really that scary. I think. One can easily see the massive makeups, gallons of foundations and the latex mask. So the result left prime ghost with pretty stiff features that’s too artistically detail to be frightened of. It left me with a fleeting notion that ‘ghosts don’t look like this’, it interrupts my analytical brain, so I was all eyes to stare at the ghostly masterpiece instead of closing my eyes with chilling tension.

Now my favourite antics. Veteran actress Ruminah Sidek (I know her since she seduced P.Ramlee in black and white comedy ‘Anak Bapak’) plays Darma’s opah (grandmother) and I’d say she supports excellently enough. Her senile antics evoke laughter and providing a light side to the rest of the heavy scenes.

In fact, the scene when she asked Darma to bring over two glasses of water for her and ‘Darma’s friend’ whom she claims sitting right next to her right at that very time, somewhat worked for me. Damn, opah can see hantu in broad daylight!

The highlight of the film is when Darma was possessed and I’m sure he’ll be the next big thing with his very realistic writhing form and unfocused diabolic eyes. Eventhough by then audience will feel the triumphant moment of human over ghost, but the adrenaline rush it accommodates is not disappointing.

Having said all that, the film is not a complete write-off and I like that the film is not long winded with audience being bogged down with the puzzling storyline and the ghost making a fashionable show just a few times. In this one, you asked for ghost, they give you ghost. Like I told a friend, “One thing that I like about this film, the ghost just never stops attacking”. And it’s true.

However, while the film is successful in building it’s ghostly atmosphere that walks hand in hand with the story flow, there was a scene that really doesn’t serve any narrative purpose and and exist solely to generate more tension, and more ghosts. What’s the deal with the faceless family in the elevator?

This element, though actually kinda scary (family ghost really presses my button!), it is in no way or another related to the prime ghost. Suddenly such good reputable faceless ghosts has become a minor, and I believe ‘The Faceless Family’ deserve a movie of their own. Yes I dig spooky flicks but ‘hantu undangan’ is quite a turn off, if you ask me. They define desperation in a film.

Leaving the big screen, the girls seemed to have quite a scary journey throughout the movie which I had anticipated for myself, and whilst I enjoyed it to some extend, I can’t truthfully say that it worked completely for me. The husbands looked quite indifferent while mine annoyingly just laughed. Hey give some respect la, this is a horror!

I still haven’t found anything that can beat Ju-on the 1st, Japanese version of course. I recalled I was taken by the scenes for a couple of weeks. I actually used a blanket instead of my usual comforter worrying there’s something creeping inside the thick cover. I didn’t flip my hair while shampooing because I imagined what if I felt an ‘additional’ caressing hands on my head?!! Ju-on was also the pioneer that introduced to the world the scary-shit crawling ghost with hair that goes forever. Ju-on rocks!

We all went home right away after the movie. That was about midnight. The following morning I woke up and continue my life without imagining anything that inspired from 'Jangan Pandang Belakang’. That’s when I knew, in a way, it failed me.

Very important note: I like ghost movies only. I'm not fond of real ghosts.