One of the biggest hits in the 80s slate of Indonesian genre films, Lilik Sudjio's “The Queen of Black Magic” is given a slick, glossy new update for modern audiences. Handled by several of Indonesia's modern genre masters, as Joko Anwar writes while Kimo Stamboel directs, this new update arrives and is one of the finest efforts of the year.
Traveling out to the country, Hanif (Ario Bayu) and Nadya (Hannah Al Rashid), as well as their kids Sandi (Ari Irham), Haqi (Muzakki Ramdhan) and Dina (Adhisty Zara), decide to visit Mamaan (Ade Firman Hakim) and his wife Siti (Sheila Dara Aisha) who live at an abandoned orphanage together. Reconciling with old friends Anton (Tanta Ginting) and Jefri (Miller Khan), they begin to reminisce about their shared past in the orphanage as they go through a family reunion of sorts, as the former owner is getting sick. As the evening rolls on and everyone continues their reunion, a series of strange events and brutal supernatural attacks begin afflicting the group, eventually causing them to realize that the whole event is caused by the vengeful spirit of a former child at the orphanage, who and is out to get them for what happened to her.
“The Queen of Black Magic” has quite a lot to like about it. The strong setup offers quite an enjoyable amount of action. Constructed as the former group coming together to pay respects to their ailing owner while serving as the substitute reunion between everyone and their families, the familiarity and greetings give way logically into the revelation of the ghost who haunts the building. This revelation and setup about the group being at the orphanage gives the viewer a glimpse into their friendly nature and how they're all genuinely friends with everyone while still planting the seeds of what's to come later on.
This setup then allows the burgeoning supernatural terror to be all the more chilling and creepy. Not only are the stories told to Haqi a great starting point to get the initial backstory laid out, but the launch into the revenge from the discovery of the bodies in the forest nearby also offers some utterly terrifying scenes here. The revelation about the bus filled with dead bodies and the swarm of insects left inside offers a wholly impressive set-piece that turns into the fun attacks on the house later on. The seemingly relaxed manner that they start falling under the spells being cast on everyone there, creates a disturbing quality as the intensity is increased over time.
The barbaric quality of the spells featured in “The Queen of Black Magic” has a lot to do with the enjoyment into the final half. As the group is slowly whittled down through the graphic sequences throughout the orphanage, the slowly-dawning realization of the true assailant becomes clear. After seeing their friends rip their throat open, vomit up bugs and staple their lips together from black magic influence, the true extent of what's going on comes about as a complete surprise when everything is given as to the motivation and reasoning which is truly appropriate and offers a great deal of sympathy for the main villain. This trope of what she becomes in the pursuit of revenge is a fine one and works quite well here.
The one slip-up is the scattershot finale which is both enjoyable and slightly problematic. The good parts come from director Stamboel's continuance of the over-the-top action and retribution being carried out over the various participants, keeping up the stellar effects work and torment that is quite chilling and innovative. Given a satisfactory wrap-up and victory over the evil figure attacking them, there's quite a lot to like here. However, the few flaws come about in some unnecessary exposition that didn't need to be there, either focusing on the actions against the children or the owner of the orphanage's past getting spelled out in full. These events are more than enough to know what's going on simply stating them, so these few elements are a bit disconcerting to have happened.
Dark, brutal and immensely enjoyable, “The Queen of Black Magic” shows just about everything you could want from a modern supernatural genre effort with very few negative qualities. Fans of the creative crew's previous works, Asian horror fanatics in general or viewers looking for this kind of brutal genre effort will be quite enthused and entertained with this one.
