NOVEMBER 25 — Anyone who grew up during the golden age of VHS will surely remember the bountiful selection of horror and genre movies, often with eye-catching titles and artwork to help gain the attention of people who frequent video stores.

If you grew up in South-east Asia during that time, your selection of horror and genre titles was even richer, courtesy of the seemingly bottomless well of Indonesian horror and exploitation flicks that were easily accessible to us thanks to our pretty similar national language. 

Not only could you enjoy classic American titles like Evil Dead, Fright Night, Halloween and countless others in the comfort of your own home but you could also enjoy classic Indonesian titles like Jaka Sembung, Pembalasan Ratu Laut Selatan, Ranjang Setan and so many others.

Even after I’ve seen countless critically-acclaimed and award-winning films in my quest to quench my endless thirst for cinema, I’ll always have fond memories of watching these Indonesian classics as a young kid.

Among them was an Indonesian Supergirl knock-off that was so memorable because the villain is a creature with the head of a woman and the body of a snake!

It’s that unlikely combination of typical Western genre conventions with the very particular quirks of South-east Asian mysticism that made a lot of these films so unique, despite their often low budgets resulting in all sorts of cheesiness.

And one of the most fondly remembered horror films from that age is Pengabdi Setan, which was quite clearly a Phantasm knock-off, but with the Christian-based horror mythology transposed to include bits and pieces of Indonesian superstition and Muslim beliefs. 

When I watched it again a few years back after I managed to score an original VCD copy from a shop in Chow Kit, it definitely didn’t scare me as much as it did the first time round, but the film’s indelible images were still powerful nonetheless.

So when highly respected film-maker Joko Anwar (of Janji Joni, Pintu Terlarang and Kala fame, which are still some of my all-time favourite Indonesian films) decided to take on the challenge of remaking that classic, you can bet your behind that I’ll be one of the first to want to see it.

And guess what, it did make it to cinemas here, and the buzz surrounding it has been pretty good, thanks to local actor Bront Palarae in one of the main roles, and the fact that you can always count on horror fans to get excited about an interesting new title, if it’s marketed right.

While I can’t say that the 2017 Pengabdi Setan is the scariest or even the best horror film of 2017, it is still hands down one of the horror highlights of 2017, and a fine example of how to do a remake that’s still fresh while remaining true to its source material. 

Joko makes sure that all the elements that made the original so beloved, like the near-godless family getting tormented by the ghost of their late mother, further deaths and accidents to people close to them (with slight tweaks to their identities), elements of witchcraft and devil-worship and of course the original film’s trademark — localised zombies (i.e. pocong-like ghosts) — are present and well accounted for. 

But what makes them so fun to spot this time round is the way that he rearranges or repurposes them, making slight tweaks and variations, and adding just enough of his own touch (which I won’t mention much except for saying that there’s a healthy amount of humour and even a bit of Rosemary’s Baby thrown in here to enrich the film’s mythology) so that this still feels like a Joko Anwar film.

The biggest difference with this remake though is in the impressively slick scare tactics used here, which even compares favourably to a lot of the good Hollywood mainstream horror flicks of the last few years.

This says a lot about the technical chops of everyone involved in this production. In fact, I’d say that it wouldn’t look out of place when placed alongside the better horror flicks from Korea, Japan and Blumhouse in terms of craft and technical skill.

A remake that totally justifies its existence, this one might just be Indonesian horror’s equivalent to The Raid in terms of international breakthrough.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.