Pengabdi Setan (English: Satan's Slaves) is the 2017 Indonesian horror film released on September 28, 2017, written and directed by Joko Anwar and it is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra. The plot follows a family whose mother suffered a strange illness for 3 years. Mother can not survive and eventually died. The dead mother then returns home to pick up her children.
As of November 7, 2017, the movie has been watched by 4,100,468 moviegoers, making Pengabdi Setan as the best-selling Indonesian film of 2017 to date. The movie was released in a total of 42 countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Germany, and the United States.
Video Pengabdi Setan (2017 film)
Plot
Rini lives in the outskirts of Jakarta in an old house owned by her wheelchair bound grandmother, Rahma Saidah, along with her mother, Mawarni Suwono, her father, and her three younger brothers, Tony, Bondi, and Ian, who is a mute and communicates with sign language. The story begins with the financial problems of their family who ran out of money for the cost of the mother's illness treatment. The severe illness causes Mawarni to be bed-ridden and unable to speak. To call and ask for help, Mawarni must ring a bell.
Various attempts have been made by the Rini's family to earn extra money, including dropping out of college and asking Mawarni's royalties for her musical career (famous for her song, "Kelam Malam"), before falling ill for three and a half years without any known cause. However, her career has long gone down so it no longer produces royalties. Tony sells his motorcycle and other personal items to help his family. Late one night, Rini hears her mother calling with the bell and goes up to her room, only to find her mother standing up and looking out of the window, back to Rini. Questioning her mother's sudden ability to be able to stand, Rini approaches her mother only to be surprised by her real mother ringing the bell, still bedridden. The 'mother' by the window slowly turns around, showing a devilish face. Rini wakes up and it was all a dream. Before she can go back to sleep, she hears her mother's bell. Events plays out as it did in the dream but this time it is Rini's real mother standing by the window, and turns around and collapse. Rini's screams brings her father who rushes up to the room, only to declare the mother dead after checking her. The whole family mourns for Mawarni.
At Mawarni's funeral, Rini's family was introduced to an Ustad and his son, Hendra, who tried to help them in the period of mourning. Due to the death of Mawarni, Rini's father went to the city to pawn their house. Mawarni's death turned out to be the beginning of terror in the Rini family's home - they are visited by a figure who resembled the dead mother. one morning, Rini takes a walk with Hendra, who reveals to her that he has seen a figure looking like Mawarnni, at her window. He tells her that the shell might be her mother's but there is something else inside Mawarni's shell. at the same time, Grandmother is very distressed about something and writes a letter. Rini and Bondi returns home only to find Grandmother missing. They search the house before Bondi's screams brings Rini to the family's well, where she finds Grandmother drowned. In her grandmother's room, Rini finds the letter addressed to Budiman Syailendra, and Rini goes to deliver the letter to Budiman's residence with Hendra. Budiman tells Rini that he is her grandmother's friend and he tells her that her grandmother did not approve Rini's parents' marriage because Mawarni is an artist and was a barren woman who could not have children, before giving birth to Rini and her siblings. Budiman gives Rini a magazine with an article he wrote that he urges her to read to understand the situation.
Meanwhile, Bondi, who was shocked to find his grandmother's body in the well, then began possessed and was about to hurt his brother, Ian, after Ian was haunted by his grandmother's ghost (whom he saw approaching Bondi and trying to catch him by pretending to play hide and seek). Tony, who reads Budiman's Maya magazine that has an article about satan's slaves, talks about their mother's relationship with a satan's slaves sect, whereby barren women can be expected to bear children through the worship of Satan, not God, and the possibility of their brother and the last child, Ian, to be taken by the sect at the age of 7, but Rini ignores it. After experiencing some horrific occurrences, they called the Ustad to check their house, and he advised them to start praying to Allah more. That night, when Rini prayed, she is haunted by the Mawarni's ghost, so Rini and her sisters ran to the house of Ustad, who planned a recitation in their house the next day.
Hendra goes to Budiman's flats after Budiman called him then he gave Hendra an article that he wrote as a correction to the previous article. On the way home, someone makes Hendra fall from his motorcycle until he was crushed by a truck. His body was taken home by local residents and then Rini finds articles which Hendra brought. That night, Rini sees Hendra's ghost outside Ustad's house and she was almost pulled out by him while the Ustad just watched with fear and surrender because his son had died from interfering Rini's family affairs. Later, their father comes and take them home, and then cried when told that his mother had died from drowning in the well.
When Rini was about to confront her father about her parents' talk on the night Mawarni died, Ian, who was urinating near the well, was dragged by grandmother's ghost into the well. His father rescued Ian while home experienced a poltergeist caused by his grandmother and the house was besieged by satan's slaves who spread the saga seeds in the house yard. Rini, Tony, and his father were locked in the stairwell as the father begged forgiveness to his mother and his wife. After Bondi rescues Ian and thwarts the grandmother's effort (which also makes him no longer possessed), the satan's slaves are gone and the house is quiet again.
Next morning, Rini's family is ready to move to the flats and wait for the car to pick them up, but nobody picked them up until the evening. Later, Ustad came to apologize that he could not help them. He can only accompany them to wait for the car while wait for Ian's 7th birthday in the middle of the night. When midnight comes, Rini awakened and remembered Budiman's article that Hendra brought, then tell about it to Tony. While they are talking, Dad is haunted by Mawarni and Bondi finds Ian speaking in unknown language while looking at the window (whereas before he was mute). Rini, Tony, Bondi and their father are hiding in Grandmother's bedroom and finally they know that the corpse of the dead from the cemetery had risen. Rini's family find out that Ustad has been dead by stabbed and Ian walked to the crowd of corpses with Mawarni.
The living dead surrounded the house and entered through the kitchen door, which was later detained by grandmother's ghost, who had been trying to save them by trying to kill Ian. Budiman arrived and took the Rini family away. A year later, the Rini family had settled in the flats and they were approached by a neighboring mother who gave them food. The neighbor went back to her house and talked to Batara, and it was revealed that she is Darminah (the main antagonist in the original film).
Maps Pengabdi Setan (2017 film)
Cast
- Tara Basro as Rini
- Bront Palarae as Father
- Endy Arfian as Tony
- Ayu Laksmi as Mother/Mawarni Suwono
- Elly D. Luthan as Grandma/Rahma Saidah
- Nasar Annus as Bondi
- M. Adhiyat as Ian
- Dimas Aditya as Hendra
- Arswendi Nasution as Ustaz
- Egy Fedly as Budiman
- Fachry Albar as Batara
- Asmara Abigail as Darminah
Production
Getting trust to produce a remake of old horror film Pengabdi Setan is not easy for director Joko Anwar. Since directing the movie Janji Joni about 10 years ago, Joko has dreamed to do a remake of 1980s horror movie. Joko reveals, Pengabdi Setan is an original film that moves Joko to become a filmmaker. After the struggle, persuasion until finally proving the seriousness to remaking the film, Joko managed to get the attention of Rapi Films producer, Sunil Samtani. Coincidentally, Rapi Films is going to remake the movie, although the production house actually already has a director candidate. Luckily, Joko's idea seems more appealing to Sunil. However, after successfully confirmed as a new film director of Pengabdi Setan, Joko's struggle has been not over yet. He still needs to direct the legendary film to be better than the previous one.
One of Joko's hard struggles is the search for a filming location that is considered to represent the visualization of the story. He confesses that it is quite difficult during the production period. Before finding the right location in Pangalengan, Pengabdi Setan production team takes four months to search. It starts from search in Jakarta area. While searching in the area of Puncak Bogor, West Java, Joko said his team get a good location and interesting. But constraint permission from the owner and after the retracing there is not considered suitable, they began to look elsewhere. Location search was expanded, until finally found an old house in Pangalengan area which located far enough from the initial location desired.
Sunil said that Pengabdi Setan from the idea of story, script, to directing by Joko Anwar requires more budget than horror movie he usually did because they determined to keep the feel of 1980s era as in the original film. He explained that the production team even redesigned an ancient house in Pangalengan, West Java, to become the location for making Pengabdi Setan. This is done in order to 'satisfy' the nuances that the director wants. Though not explaining the nominally straightforwardness required to revive the 'spirit' in Pengabdi Setan, Sunil ensured the budget exceeded Rp2 billion.
Soundtrack
The Pengabdi Setan film soundtrack is directed by Aghi Narottama, Tony Merle, and Bemby Gusti. Director Joko Anwar said that there are at least five songs that will be on the album plus 16 others so there will be a total of 21 tracks. Three of them were released on October 19, 2017 on Spotify and iTunes.
Release
Pengabdi Setan premiered in Indonesia at the Epicentrum XXI, Kuningan, South Jakarta on September 20, 2017. The film was released in all Indonesian cinemas on September 28, 2017, and in Malaysia and Singapore on November 23, 2017. The film also to be released in 42 countries.
Reception
Box office
As of the end of 2017, Pengabdi Setan grossed Rp155 billion ($11.5 million) in Indonesia, and RM6 million ($1.5 million) in neighbouring Malaysia, the latter country giving it its place as the highest grossing Indonesian film of all time beating Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2's record collective gross of RM4.6 million in 2016. In Mexico, Pengabdi Setan (known as Los Huerfanos) ranked at 6th place on Mexico Box Office on March 2-4, 2018; grossed $233,763 on its first week release. On April 3, 2018, it opened at No. 1 in Hong Kong. Back in its home country in Indonesia, Pengabdi Setan became the best-selling Indonesian film of 2017, and ranked at the fourth place of best-selling Indonesian films of all time.
Critical response
John Lui of The Straits Times gave Pengabdi Setan 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote that "the scares are carefully timed and spaced between plenty of character-building moments, showing the closeness of the family. These soap opera bits have aged the least well, but there is a low-key feel to these moments of filial piety that is thoroughly modern." Variety's Richard Kuipers wrote that the film has "high marks when it comes to the fundamental horror movie task of sending shivers up the spine and quickening the pulse." James Marsh of the South China Morning Post gave the film 3/5 stars, saying "a slow-burning tale that builds to a chaotic and somewhat muddled conclusion, Satan's Slaves is bursting with ideas." Jonathan Barkan of Dread Central gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, writing "without a doubt, Satan's Slaves is certainly creepy. This Indonesian occult horror remake gets it right".
Accolades
Sequel
Executive producer Sunil Samtani said Rapi Films has been discussing the project plan of the sequel of Pengabdi Setan. The film is planned for release in 2019 and Joko Anwar will still be involved.
References
External links
- Pengabdi Setan on IMDb
- Pengabdi Setan at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of article : Wikipedia
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