{"id":4209,"date":"2015-07-02T03:01:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T03:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2015-07-02T03:01:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T03:01:29","slug":"queen-of-black-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=4209","title":{"rendered":"QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC!!!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queen of Black Magic<\/a><\/strong> (AKA<\/strong> Black Magic Terror<\/strong><\/em>, apparently.)\u00a0~ 1983, Liliek Sudjio<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

In the 1970’s and 80’s, Asia kicked it up a notch and hit us, the people of Planet Earth, with nigh countless bad ass genre films in a variety of enjoyable and distinct subgenres. One such subgenre was the magic\/superstition\/horror movie, which produced a number of rock solid genre classics, like Black Magic<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, Seeing of a Ghost<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, and Eternal Evil of Asia<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. Queen of Black Magic<\/em> is an Indonesian contribution to this rich horror lexicon, and while it’s clearly a less technically sophisticated production than many of it’s Chinese predecessors, damn if it’s not impressive and entertaining all the same. Queen of Black Magic<\/em> in particular has earned a reputation over the decades for it’s special effects, which are both gruesome, and impressive, given the film’s low budget, and scant resources.<\/p>\n

Honestly, all of these movies are at least a little bit entertaining, because they draw on such a rich and fascinating folk tradition, which most Westerners are totally unfamiliar with. And there are hundreds of them! Probably most American horror fans have never even dipped their toe in the Asian Magic Horror Film well, and that well is deeper than you could ever imagine. Time to dive in.<\/p>\n

THE PLOT~<\/strong> Times are tough for Murni. Some time ago, Kohar, local\u00a0lady-killer extraordinaire, charmed his way into her Jungle Pants, and she was powerless to resist his advances, because he is Kohar. Actually,\u00a0let’s\u00a0get to know this guy a little bit before we proceed.<\/p>\n

GETTING TO KNOW KOHAR:\u00a0UNDISPUTED STUD-MUFFIN OF SOUTHEAST ASIA<\/strong><\/p>\n

No woman can resist Kohar. Here are some of his finer points.<\/p>\n

\"eyes\"\"back\"kilt\"\"stache\"These qualities speak for themselves, Kohar is\u00a0manhood incarnate, and a force to be reckoned with.\u00a0The sad truth, though,\u00a0is that\u00a0he’s also\u00a0a total dick.\u00a0Having\u00a0successfully executed Operation:\u00a0“Bang\u00a0Murni,” Kohar\u00a0decides to temporarily pacify\u00a0his deeply\u00a0upset female conquest\u00a0with\u00a0the\u00a0promise\u00a0that\u00a0everything was totally okay, because he was\u00a0for sure\u00a0gonna mary her real soon, Scount’s honor. Well, looks like the only Merit-Badges Kohar ever earned were in seducing ladies,\u00a0Dope-Ass\u00a0Back-Daggers,\u00a0and being a fucking liar, because here we are, present day, and he’s marrying some other girl, while Murni is stuck sitting around like chopped liver. Totally uncool!<\/p>\n

\"tears\"<\/p>\n

I can’t tell if she’s crying because she’s sad, or if it’s because of that giant onion she’s caressing. <\/strong><\/p>\n

She’s pretty broken up about it, obviously,\u00a0but\u00a0Murni needn’t be too jealous for very long. You see,\u00a0unbeknownst to anyone in the village,\u00a0this here\u00a0wedding is about to get kyboshed super\u00a0hard, black magic style,\u00a0because some unknown third party has decided to\u00a0place a gnarly curse on\u00a0Kohar’s blushing bride to be, thereby disrupting these nuptials but good. Enraged, Kohar decides he wants\u00a0to bring justice to whoever the hell just ruined his big day;\u00a0but, sadly, he has no idea who that person could be. “I’ll just blame Murni,” he thinks. “I probably haven’t ruined enough of her life yet, anyway.”\u00a0Using his raw animal charisma and remarkable\u00a0gift for public speaking, Kohar\u00a0convinces a good chunk of\u00a0his fellow\u00a0villagers that there is at least a 15% chance that Murni totally did this, and\u00a0is definitley\u00a0a witch.\u00a0Instantly, a mob is formed, and Kohar leads his fellow villagers through the balmy jungles of Indonesia on a quest\u00a0to brutally murder an innocent girl who he had personally\u00a0de-virginized only weeks prior. Long story short, neither Murni, or her mother, whom she lives with, end up having a very nice evening. Murni is drug out, beaten, and tossed off a cliff. When her mother pleads with the group to have mercy on Murni, Kohar slaps her unconscious and burns her house down. He’s a friggin’ dick.<\/p>\n

\"koharSo, Murni tumbles down the cliff, shattering every bone in her body on the countless branches and stone outcroppings that\u00a0she strikes on the way down, but thank goodness,\u00a0some weird jungle hermit somehow\u00a0catches her and takes her back to his secluded hell-cave, which just so happens to be littered with spooky black magic paraphernalia. No big deal!\u00a0This Satanic Samaritan kindly\u00a0nurses\u00a0Murni back to health,\u00a0before he\u00a0hits her with some hardline, Darth Sidious style\u00a0manipulation. “Listen, yo,” he says. “Them fools tried to kill you. You gotta get your revenge- black magic style! And I’ll train you in the ways of the dark side, so you can totally do it. You have to kill all of those people, or else.” Murni isn’t exactly elated with this proposal, but manipulative douche bags seem to have a way with her, and she agrees. Soon, Murni returns to the village to get her vengeance, which, and I can’t stress this enough, is really awesome. Highlights include a man who grows giant, disgusting blood blisters all over his face and arms, and of course, the demise of Kohar, who is actually forced to\u00a0yank his own head off.<\/p>\n

\"blister\"gnarly\"kohar\"KoharJust… Just so, so awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the movie isn’t over. Next,\u00a0a pious stranger from the city arrives\u00a0in town, eager to pray at the local mosque,\u00a0which the superstitious locals have long since\u00a0abandoned. When he learns of the many black magic related issues the village has been dealing with in days of late, this wandering holy man decides that all they really\u00a0need to turn it all around is\u00a0some good ol’ fashioned\u00a0churchin’ up.\u00a0He takes it upon himself to lead this wayward flock back into the light, which actually kinda works, and that just\u00a0pisses off\u00a0Murni’s reclusive jungle mentor like you can’t believe. It’s clear that this town ain’t big enough for the two of them.\u00a0Can these two opposing forces embrace one another and\u00a0learn to coexist, or will the bad guy literally explode at the end of the movie?!?<\/p>\n

\"Spoiler<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, Queen of Black Magic<\/em> is a story about redemption,\u00a0but it’s\u00a0also about resisting temptation. Murni’s problems all stem from how easily swayed she is, first by Kohar, and next by her black magic mentor man… Which, admittedly, murdering people with the powers of hell is a lot\u00a0worse than banging some skeezeball, but it’s the same basic principles.\u00a0In the end, the moral also stresses the importance of owning up to the wrongs you have committed, and accepting the punishments associated with them. Also, Murni almost marries her brother, but\u00a0incest doesn’t really seem like a problem in this film’s self contained universe. Listen, just go watch this movie, it’s awesome.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned above, the special effects in Queen of Black Magic<\/em> really stand out as being pretty excellent for a low budget film of this caliber. They’re bloody, imaginative, and fantastically\u00a0well executed, meaning that amateur films being made today have absolutely no excuse for shitty CG effects. You’re all lazy, do better.<\/p>\n

Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Queen of Black Magic (AKA Black Magic Terror, apparently.)\u00a0~ 1983, Liliek Sudjio In the 1970’s and 80’s, Asia kicked it up a notch and hit us, the people of Planet Earth, with nigh countless bad ass genre films in a variety of enjoyable and distinct subgenres. One such subgenre was the magic\/superstition\/horror movie, which produced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1295,1300,146,1293,1292,1306,1299,1298,139,1302,1301,1296,1294,1305,1297,1304,1303],"class_list":["post-4209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1295","tag-awesome-special-effects","tag-b","tag-black-magic","tag-black-magic-terror","tag-cg-can-blow-itself","tag-dudes-ripping-off-their-own-heads","tag-eternal-evil-of-asia","tag-indonesia","tag-jungle-kilts","tag-kohar","tag-liliek-sudjio","tag-queen-of-black-magic","tag-secluded-hell-caves","tag-seeding-of-a-ghost","tag-weird-jungle-hermits","tag-wicked-awesome-back-daggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4209"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4248,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions\/4248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}