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Macabre

(Darah)

Synopsis

Every once in a while a horror film comes along and grabs you by the scruff of the neck and doesn't let you go until the end credits roll. The Evil Dead films, Braindead and more recently (REC), all fall into this category and now Macabre, a brilliant, fast paced and blood splattered horror, has the honour of joining this exclusive set. A group of friends decide to take a stranded young woman home, once there they meet one of the creepiest families in film history and a nightmare no one could have imagined begins to unravel.

Reviews

Possibly the goriest film of Fanomenon’s selection this year, Macbre is the second film from Mo Brothers; a semi-sequel of their short Dara, which confusingly translates from Indonesian as ‘macabre’, and is also the name of the principle actress in both films. As macabre by name as it is by nature, this adrenaline pumped feature mixes international horror themes as varied as Inside, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mum and Dad, with a touch of David Lynch thrown in for good measure. This is indeed a recipe for a near perfect horror movie. A slowly escalating exposition in which the characters and relationships of this group of friends are established is indeed slow, but is nonetheless essential as a point of contrast for the destructive events that follow. The extreme pace of events after the first half manifests as even more brutal and shocking after the slow build up, but also the dysfunctional nature of these characters and their themes of pregnancy, lost parents and family acts as a symbolic juxtaposition against the outwardly normal, if not intensely creepy, family who become the group’s tormentors. The ‘road-trip interrupted by screwed up family’ story is familiar from Hollywood’s offerings since the 1970’s. The question is, can a Singaporean/Indonesian spin on this concept be done better, and differently to how we’ve seen it before? Indeed, the girl needing help in the road reeks of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a nod to which is exaggerated when an actual chainsaw is wielded by the bumbling father character. However, this is a fleeting comparison, and though it does hold strong remake potential as conventions of the Hollywood slasher are already in place, said conventions are played with; the inept police for example, are almost archetypal of slasher movies, but here add a bumbling, humorous intermission to the gorefest, and the chainsaw is but one of a myriad of implements used to torture the wretched group. So this is a touch of Chainsaw, with definite genre elements reminiscent of recent torture films. Fans of Mum and Dad, for instance, will recognise the mute father character and matriarchal mother, and Inside is definitely a precursor of Macabre’s gore-factor: when will pregnant women learn that appearing in a horror film is the harbinger of doom?! The clinical, sinister atmosphere of the first half, with a few decent jump scares and some stand-out cinematography, is a perfect contrast for the frantic pace of the second, with the multitude of methods of killing and maiming the group being executed fantasticly: some of the violence is scarily realistic. Also worthy of note is the character of Dara, the ‘mother’. Her sinister robotic portrayal and superhuman strength make her a perfect villain, the monstrous feminine absolute. The characterisation of the whole family is, in fact, brilliant. The male members are almost mute, and take their orders directly from Dara, a power which is pitched against the final girl of the film; another conventions borrowed from Hollywood which is twisted and pushed to the extreme, a rivalry which ends in a final battle that is epic, and certainly goregasmic. With Japanese horror being constantly remade in the West, it is fantastic to see a country not known for being a player on the international cinema scene produce such a disturbed and incredibly well made film. With an ending that screams ‘sequel’, Macabre is an impressive debut and could be the start of something very special for the Mo Brothers, and international horror.