Michael Chandler
After seeing the movie "V/H/S/2" I loved the episode called "Safe Haven". Reading up about the two directors I happened to see these previous horror films called "Dara" and "Macabre". Apparently Dara is a short and I can't seem to get my hands on it at the moment. But I got to see the blue ray version of "Macabre" and man was I blown away! I may seem to over blow it but if you find yourself watching it and saying it's OK but not all that" just keep watching because the horror and the action just keep amping up up up until you think there can be no more and then there is still more! It's one of the goriest movies I have seen but it's done so well and used effectively to shock and disturb/scare you that it really works. Not just gore for gore sake and not like some of the zombie type genre that show so much it gets mundane or even comical. This stuff is intense!!! Best horror movie I have seen in years. It's not in English and you'll have to read the subtitles but it's well worth it for those who have a problem with that. The only thing that bothers me about it is I am spoiled and wan't more. Now I'll go through that phase where I have to watch 20 more junk horror flicks before I find another diamond like this. Hope not. Great movie. 9 out of 10 for me!
Chris_Docker
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.
Maddis
I admit, there were moments of fun but if you have seen Inside or Frontiers, you will instantly recognize the elements "reimagined" from both. This is the Indonesian version of those two movies with some nice gore but unfortunately not much originality. I would imagine if this was new to some, it could stand as a worthy horror entry but just pales in comparison to the films from which it borrowed. So, recommended but with an asterisk at the bottom.Frontiers was no doubt a French take on Texas Chainsaw but there were enough nuance elements to make it interesting - the Nazi bloodline, the pigs, the original death scenes all made it entertaining. Inside, IMO, was simply brilliant. Awash in a blood soaked homage to a female Michael Michaels stalking a pregnant women in her home, it had several cringe worthy contrived plot devices (the cops for God sakes!), but it manages to pull off a sympathetic antagonist at the end.Now back to Macabre...one thing they did well was to inject some humor and male machismo into an otherwise derivative plot. The idea is of course to make you forget reality and this movie will do that. The blood soaked walls and carnage that remains at the end somewhat discredits the supposed craziness of the family given how meticulously clean and white everything is in the beginning scenes of the home. If you are a horror fan, don't miss it. If you are a fan with international taste, you may be a bit turned off by the repeated themes and copied scenes throughout.Maddis
ichocolat
Darah, or known internationally by Macabre, is arguably the best Indonesian gore/slasher film genre to date. It exceeds expectations, and delivers on what it promises; great scenes, and tensions that will keep you awake until the end credits.The film starts rather slowly, but it soon picks up tempo at around the 20-minute mark.There is a lack of substance in the plots, but the scenes made up for it. The graphics are cruel, crude, and certainly not for the faint-hearted.The slashing and the blood spilling continues right until the end. The wide-eyed Maya (the woman who eats human flesh to stay immortal) is downright creepy. But the person who takes the credit for being brutal is the baby-adult, an adult which dresses like a child, bespectacled and looks retarded. He is brutal, chopping heads from the body, and looking creepy without even trying.I commend the effort of the directors which takes the road less traveled. Nowadays, Indonesians film are littered with sex-oriented themes, and this film tries to run from the perceptions.A cool 10/10 for its effort, and the punches it delivers!
AD
