The Queen of Black Magic (2019) poster

The Queen of Black Magic (2019)

Rating:

(Ratu Ilmu Hitam)


Indonesia. 2019.

Crew

Director – Kimo Stamboel, Screenplay – Joko Anwar, Producers – Gope T. Samtani, Photography – Patrick Tashadian, Music – Yudhi Arfani & Fajar Yuskemal, Visual Effects Supervisor – Gaga Nugraha Ramadhan, Visual Effects – Ate Studio, Dalang Digital Studio & Mattebox Visualworks, Makeup Effects – Ucok Al Basirun, Art Direction – Ricardo Marpaung. Production Company – Rapi Films/Sky Media.

Cast

Ario Bayu (Hanif), Hannah Al Rashid (Nadya), Muzzakir Ramadhan (Haqi), Zara JKT4K (Dina), Ari Irham (Sandi), Sheila Dara Aisha (Siti), Ade Firman Hakim (Maman), Tanta Ginting (Anton), Miller Khan (Jefri), Imelda Therinne (Eva), Salvita Decorte (Lina), Giulio Parengkuan (Hashi), Shenina Cinnamon (Rani), Yayu Unru (Pak Biandi), Putri Arudya (Murni), Ruth Marini (Ibu Mirah)


Plot

Hanif, his wife Nadya and their three children drive from Jakarta to visit the orphanage where Hanif was raised. Also arriving for a reunion are Anton and Jefri, who grew up there with Hanif, and their respective families. They are welcomed in by the caretakers Maman and Siti. They soon discover that sinister things are going on at the orphanage. The children are told the story of Ms Mirah who was locked up maddened in her room after a girl went missing. Gradually, secrets start to come out about the terrible things that occurred in the past. At the same time, there is the appearance of something that can possess others and wants to cause harm to everyone present.


Kimo Stamboel is one half of the (unrelated) Indonesian directing duo known as The Mo Brothers, the other ‘brother’ being Timo Tjahjanto. After an episode of the anthology Takut Faces of Fear (2008), The Mo Brothers made an extraordinary debut with the grisly horror film Macabre (2009). Together, they subsequently made Killers (2014) about a friendship between two serial killers and the non-genre action film Headshot (2016).

Subsequent to this, both of the Mo Brothers have gone on to solo careers. On his own, Timo Tjahjanto contributed episodes to various anthologies and made the full-length horror film May the Devil Take You (2018), its sequel May the Devil Take You: Chapter Two (2020) and the action films The Night Comes for Us (2018) and The Big Four (2022). Less high-profile was Kimo Stamboel’s subsequent career where he made the occult horror DreadOut (2019) and ten months later The Queen of Black Magic.

Hannah Al Rashid in the orphanage of horrors in The Queen of Black Magic (2019)
Hannah Al Rashid in the orphanage of horrors

The film here has a not dissimilar plot to Macabre – various couples (and their families) travel to a remote place and are invited inside where they proceed to be tortured and killed in the nastiest ways that Stamboel can imagine. (Not long after this, Timo Tjahjanto made May the Devil Take You: Chapter Two, which has an almost identical plot where a group of orphans are haunted by an evil guardian they killed in the past). That said, The Queen of Black Magic doesn’t quite sit up there with the full-tilt ferocity of Macabre – it has a long lead-in that teases us with clues about the orphanage and its backhistory and who or what could be behind it. However, it is not until the last quarter of the film that Stamboel lets all stops go.

In this latter section, we get some admirably twisted scenes like where Giulio Parengkuan staples his lips together and then starts shooting at young Muzzakir Ramadhan with a BB gun. Where the film fully comes into its own is the series of visions we get at the end of people trapped in different rooms being tortured – one room with people under a rain of acid, others with insects rippling under the skin, people forced to vomit, others suffering whiplashes. It all becomes memorably deranged.


Trailer here


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