Leák

Adventuresome film lovers looking for the most warped stuff from around the globe would do well to check out this terminally weird Indonesian horror film. "Leak", a.k.a. "Mystics in Bali", is a real trip, one where you won't believe what you're seeing. It's equal parts cheesy, creepy, silly, and mysterious, and establishes an interesting lore. It's this lore that intrigues an American named Cathy (Ilona Agathe Bastian), who seeks to know more about the powerful magic known as Leak, supposedly more powerful than any other form of magic. Well, she really gets in over her head, as the female Leak cult member whom she meets (Sofia W.D.) is willing to mentor her in all things Leak, but the horrific old crone mainly wants to use Cathy for her own ends. It's up to Cathy's good friend Mahendra (Yos Santo) to help save the day. The special effects in this thing may not always be terribly slick, but it's this very crudeness that makes them so endearing and, sometimes, hysterical. The audience may howl with appreciative laughter seeing the way that the crone manipulates Cathy's body, separating her head from her body on occasion and sending it out on killing missions. There are also a couple of transformations, as Cathy is shown how to become lower animals, such as a pig and a snake. The music, by Gatot Sudarto, is very atmospheric, as is the jungle setting; director H. Tjut Djalil handles everything with a certain degree of panache, ensuring that the stupefied viewer will keep watching. As can be expected, the actors performing the dubbed in voices are hilariously bad, while the people on screen gamely perform this material with the straightest faces imaginable. It's worth sticking with this just to see how this wild story will resolve itself. While it was a big hit in Asia back in its day, it never got a proper release stateside as it was thought North American audiences wouldn't be able to appreciate its weirdness. Of course, now we can watch it on the DVD from Mondo Macabro and soak up its ambiance and flair. Anybody who's a fan of strange cinema is advised not to pass it up. Eight out of 10.

This is the story about a woman doing research on black magic. After having learned everything about Voodoo, she travels to Indonesia to meat and great "Leak", a monster-ghost.

Nearly everything is horrible in this movie, from the special-effects, over the acting to the story. On the other side it's so bad that it becomes funny. Everybody in the movie-theater was laughing tears (what you can not say of most of the newer Eddie Murphy Films). So if you have the chance to see this Indonesian horror movie do it ! In Europe this film was shown under the title of "Mystics in Bali".

There are many strange horror-fantasy- films from countries like Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia and even Nigeria and Ghana to discover if you are open minded enough

"Mystics in Bali" is a wonderfully bizarre, off-the-beaten path Indonesian horror/supernatural flick about an American writer researching black magic. She's experienced the voodoo of the Caribbean, but she runs into some real trouble as a student of the Leak in Bali.

There are a lot of disjointed plot points and the dialogue is weak, but the music (I doubt traditional Balinese music has been used in a horror flick before) and total oddity of a flying head make this a worthwhile view for fans of the unusual.

MYSTICS OF BALI has to be seen to be believed. Up until this time (1980) Indonesian cinema had been following along India cinema - where the movies pretty much had EVERYTHING in them - musical numbers, slapstick comedy, violence, horror, etc. MYSTICS was one of the first times they tried to make just a flat-out horror film and specifically for Western horror audiences. The film is a strange blend - with some genuine creepy moments and others that will have you unintentionally laugh out loud. Obviously they had no budget to pull off the special effects so when the woman's head leaves her body and she becomes this flying head with her entrails still connected - well, she looks like a badly made prop from George Romero directing Let's Go Fly A Kite in Mary Poppins. A western women comes to Bali to study their "black magic" and gets in too deep and before she knows it, Indonesian forest witches control her and make her become this nocturnal flying head that flies around....and there is one scene where she attacks a pregnant woman and bad effects or not - it is downright creepy. The other truly bizarre thing in this film is the evil witches - they are gnarled old women with bad teeth and long fingernails and they laugh/cackle for five solid minutes at times (or so it seems) - it becomes comical because they are giving it 110% percent in their evil laughing but it ends up sounding like Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf. What a weird film - check it out.

Cathy (Ilona Agathe Bastian), an American student of witchcraft, travels to Bali in order to learn about Leák, the most powerful of all black magic. With the help of local man Mahendra (Yos Santo), Cathy becomes an apprentice of the Leák queen (Sofia W.D.), an ugly old hag who talks like Yoda and laughs like Salacious Crumb. But although the queen seems happy to reveal the secrets of her dark arts, she is actually using the young woman to increase her own powers, detaching Cathy's head from her body and sending it on night-time missions to collect the regenerating blood of new-born infants.

Despite featuring such bonkers sights as a flying head with vampire teeth and dangling entrails feeding on a woman about to give birth, talking fireballs engaged in mortal combat, Cathy and the queen transforming into animals (including a pig creature with breasts!!), Cathy vomiting up live mice in green goop after a night spent in the form of a snake, and a supernatural showdown with lightning bolts and electric fingers, Mystics in Bali isn't quite as enjoyable as one might imagine: the action is rather repetitive, the queen's incessant manic laughter gets really, really annoying, Mahendra's romance with Cathy is as dull as ditch-water (no gratuitous nudity here, folks!), and the visual effects are absolutely dire.

For a slightly more satisfying example of Indonesian craziness, check out The Queen of Black Magic.