And there are numerous others I could mention. Lady Terminator (1989) goes without saying. Tracking Revenge (1989) is an almost scene-for-scene copy of Ninja III: The Domination. Satan's Bed (1986) and Pact with the Forces of Darkness copied the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Though I personally don't see it, Satan's Slave (1980) is said to be 'heavily inspired by' Phantasm.

Actually, many of the above films are either rip-offs or remakes. Every country seems to have their own version! Satan in Her (1974) was Indonesia's answer to the worldwide phenomenon The Exorcist (1973). It won three Citra Awards at the Indonesian Film Festival. The Angry Man (1972) is an unauthorized remake of Cape Fear (1962).

Two of his vehicles in particular - Sisworo Gautama Putra's The Warrior (1981) and Ratno Timoer's The Devil's Sword (1984) - have also become big cult items in recent years thanks to remastered DVD releases from Mondo Macabro. Prima, who is of mixed Dutch and Indonesian ancestry and trained in tae kwon do, became not only Indonesia's biggest film star of the 80s but also the undisputed king of these type of fantasy-adventure-horror 'mistik' hybrids. Indonesia's biggest all-around star from this time was Barry Prima. Indonesia was particularly proficient with fantasy films, which are considered their own distinct genre called 'Mistik.' Even though these are often filled with horror elements (monsters, witches and witchcraft, gore, ghosts, black magic, zombies, etc.), they're seldom classified as horror on online film sites but we're going to do something about that right here. Except it wasn't even Indonesia yet.Īnother minor issue compiling this list is that many Indonesian horror efforts are defiant of being pigeonholed to just one genre and gleefully mix up the horror (whenever present) with action, fantasy, comedy and melodrama. This would also include director Tan Tjoie Hock's 1941 film Tengkorak Hidoep (aka 'The Living Skull'), which definitely would count as horror as it was heavily influenced by western vampire films, involves a group of people encountering a 2000-year-old evil spirit on an island and is almost always listed as being Indonesia's very first horror film. Thus films like director The Teng Chun's Ouw Peh Tjoa (1934, 'Two White Snake Ghosts') and the follow-up Anaknja Siloeman Oeler Poeti (1936, 'Son of White Snake Ghost'), fantasy films that perhaps have some mild horror content, wouldn't count. Before that, it was the Dutch East Indies and the Dutch refused to officially let go until 1949, so films produced prior to 1950 (the very first being the now-missing 1926 silent film Loetoeng Kasaroeng / 'The Enchanted Monkey') aren't even technically Indonesian. For starters, Indonesia as a country wasn't even Indonesia until they declared their independence in 1945. There are many good reasons there were barely any horror films made in Indonesia prior to 1970.

Indonesian horror movies