Macabre

MACABRE is one of those tasty blood-gushingly psychological tortures in three neat and tidy acts. Even the trailer is hard to watch without looking away. Act One has two newly weds, Adjie and Astrid, with three of their best friends. Chill out, relax in Bandung, Indonesia. Head for Jakarta, but give a lift home to a strange girl who says she's been robbed. In her mother's house, we enter the pristine, bourgeois world of Dara, who insists on repaying kindness with food and drink. And torture. Once drugged, our guests enter a blood-dripping, nightmarish world of no escape, their bodies neatly sliced one by one and professionally packaged. Astrid gives birth. Dara's calm, sophisticated composure never breaks its stride. She coolly empathises with Astrid's pain before pointing out that baby and hubby will experience even more. Viewing permitted. As the film is introduced at the end of a all-night film programme, we are told not to worry if we are already tired. The plot is simple and nothing to fret over. "Pink blobs are people, red buckets are blood, and whirring things are chainsaws." A classic story where the point isn't revealed till the end, and the suspense, sadistic pain, and surreal nastiness doesn't stop for a second. A satisfying if rather colourful conclusion to the long night at Edinburgh's Dead By Dawn horror film festival.

Newly-weds Adjie and Astrid, Adjie's sister Ladya and a few of their friends fall prey to the wicked cannibal family led by evil Dara in the Mo-Brothers directed 'Macabre'. While the scenario is inspired from various cult-slashers of the late 70s and early 80s, the treatment is what makes it stand its own ground.

'Macabre' is indeed a lot more violent and gory film than you'd expect. The first 30 minutes neatly sets up the premise and nastiness follows suit. There are some skilfully choreographed kills and the writing is campy enough to draw cheers from the viewer. Although one initially hesitates to root for the protagonists as they consistently seem to be making bad decisions, the latter half is executed with sufficient flair. There are quite a few edge-of- the-seat moments.

Julie Estelle as Ladya puts up a good effort while Shareefa Daanish who plays Dara is menacing. Shareefa's striking features add to the character: her wide eyes and stone-faced expression (until the climax), her unhurried movement and other-worldly tone of speech are intimidating. The rest of the ensemble do their best with what's handed out to them. The violence is gratuitous (easily on par with Rob Zombie's films); dialogues are sparsely used to convey the intentions and emotions of the antagonists. In fact a lot more is conveyed through expressions and actions than through excessive babbling. This helps 'Macabre' carve out a niche of its own in the slasher genre.

Recommended for the lovers of horror, gore and slasher films. This definitely ain't for the weak-hearted!

Have you seen a recent french movie called "Inside" (International title)? If you have and enjoyed it, you will also enjoy this one. A "fun" and very bloody movie, that definitely is not for the faint-hearted.

But it takes it's time to get started. If you can "wait" for 20 minutes or so, the "ride" will start and you can lean back and enjoy. It's not overly plotted or has any real good acting in it, but then again, do you really need those things, in a movie like this? Of course it has quite some flaws, but again, if you let yourself go with the flow on this one, you can enjoy it. Just know what you watch, if you like those kinda things and you will have a good time.

I came across this film when I was reading the message boards for ABC's of Death. One of the directors made this movie Macabre a few years ago and for some strange reason, it flew completely under my radar. It was difficult to find a copy with English hardcoded subtitles, but I eventually found one. In a gory scale of 1 to 10, this Indonesian film comes in around 15. We're talking seriously bizarre, gory violence. The film is basically about a group of friends that pick up a girl, stranded on the side of the road, and take her home where her unusually young looking mother invites them to stay for dinner. That's all you need to know because as you can imagine, after that point, things get nuts. If you've seen many horror movies from any of the Asian countries, the subject matter will be familiar. The story is nothing super original, it's still good, but it's definitely been done before. The gore, on the other hand, is pretty gnarly. Especially the last 20 minutes… If you have an appetite for gore and an iron stomach, you're gonna want to drop this one in your Netflix queue.

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Well, i love horror movie. I think the latest Chucky 2013 stupid. Sorry for my bad English but my review is the true color of my honesty.

Had my chances to watch this movie last night as i never heard about this movie until someone mention this movie in a forum, saying my country banned this movie. I watch with high expectation and God, its crazy and scary and i wont say fun but this movie definitely not for pregnant woman, for one who cant accept the reality of horror and for one with faint heart or heart disease.

Its not a ghost story but related to black magic, cannibalism and such. From a country such as Malaysia and knowing that one such killer ever existed in my country (a movie named Dukun tells the true horror about the incident), Darah is crazy and believable.

God. Horror fan should add this movie in their top list.