Review - Khurafat

The first Malay horror movie of 2011. The first one I watched anyway. Wait, it is the first Malay horror movie. In fact, it is the first Malay movie of 2011. Damping Malam and Janin both came out end December last year.

One of the reasons why I wanted to catch this movie, other than the fact that I am a horror movie buff... is Liyana Jasmay... something about her... I very much like... her and Lisa Surihani are the two actresses that I would go see in the cinema... Liyana Jasmay was in Histeria, a very good Malay horror movie... and of course I was kinda intrigued with Shamsul Yusuf after his directing win at the last FFM...

So the story goes like this... Johan (Shamsul Yusuf) and Aishah (Liyana Jasmay) came back to Johan's hometown to visit his sick mother. During which, one villager died due to his usage of the black arts, which Johan witnessed. The death itself. The night before they left for KL, both of them got haunted.

Meanwhile, back in KL, Johan's ex-girlfriend Anna, who can't get over Johan marrying someone else and is hell bent on getting Johan back, one way or another.

Once the newly-weds are in KL, the haunting started to escalate...

Pretty nifty story here. There are a couple of red herrings in the plot. Actually three. Which served to mislead us until the final revelation. I could not figure out, for the life of me, what the twist was. Actually, I knew there was a twist somewhere and that one of the misleading subplots is in fact misleading. So I guess this movie manages to keep the red herrings intact and distract me from figuring out the movie until after the revelation occurred.

So good job to Syamsul Yusuf for weaving an intricate and kinda complex storylines together. Using the makcik for expositionary purposes? Quite nice. I'd expected him to go to the Imam.

The dialogue was not bad. It's quite natural and real, like us normal folks talking, especially the scenes between Johan and his friend from the hospital.

Acting-wise, the movie's pretty solid. Liyana Jasmay, FFM Best Actress for Papadom, sleepwalks through the movie as her role is not exactly a challenge. Syamsul Yusuf was not bad, although at times, he may seem a bit wooden and stoic but that maybe how the character was written. His crying scenes were pretty good. Sabrina Ali, playing the crazy ex Anna, is also pretty good but I wish she (and indirectly Syamsul as the director) would make Anna out to be a little more subtle. Subtle crazy is far scarier than freaky crazy.

Other than that, it was an enjoyable horror movie. Oh wait, scratch that horror part. It was an enjoyable movie. The usage of loud music to shock us was minimal. There are several scenes where the ghost would show up but there was no music to set the mood. It was silence and then, bam! Girly Ghost in your face! Hahha...

Looking forward to the next horror movie from him... if he is doing another horror...