The Queen of Black Magic (1979 Review)
aka Ratu ilmu hitam
Director: Liliek Sudjio
Cast: Suzzanna, W.D. Mochtar, Teddy Purba, Sofia W.D., Alan Nuary
Mondo Macabro / Indonesian / Unrated / NTSC R1 / 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen / English Language / 90 minutes / Purchase from DiabolikDVD.com
During his wedding to the village leader’s daughter, Kohar’s wife-to-be starts to hallucinate that he is a corpse and that snakes are all around her. Kohar decides that this is the work of black magic and his ex, Murni, must be the culprit. He gathers a mob to hunt her down and kill her for practicing the dark art and for bringing demons to the village. They find her and throw her off of a cliff but unknown to them she is caught (in mid-air) by a witch doctor who is actually the one cursing the town.
The witch doctor nurses her back to health and manipulates her into taking revenge on those that have wronged her. It doesn’t take much convincing before she starts her training in black magic and begins killing her attackers in fantastically original ways. Once she has killed them all, she wants to stop but witchy-poo wants her to keep going and tricks her into it by making her see her new love (a mysterious holy man who is helping the village fight the demonic black magic and doesn’t know who she is) with another woman.
The end result is some weird, Indonesian magical mayhem with a, well, “explosive” ending. Murni’s murderous rampages cuts a swath through the village idiots who followed Kohar’s lead with attacks of killer bees, mud snakes, acidic eggs, busticating boils and voodoo doll delights. There is lots of great, well done gore and surprises to keep you completely enthralled. One thing I found odd about the content was one scene with Murni taking a bath and her naked body is blurred… why? They show the better part of her nipple earlier in a too creepy breastfeeding scene. What people decide to edit is perplexing to me sometimes.
Mondo Macabro’s high definition transfer from the original negative looks perfect but the audio was a bit fuzzy. It wasn’t so bad that it was distracting, but it is noticeable throughout. The best extra for me was the MM trailer compilation that reminded me that I need to dive deeper into their surreal, international cinema archives. The interview with the effects dude and the background stuff didn’t interest me, but you may love it. But even if the disk was bare-bones it would be worth picking up.
