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The Shudder streaming service and IFC Films, both of which are owned by AMC Networks, have secured a deal with boutique Blu-ray and DVD label Severin Films to put together eleven special edition physical media releases of some of the most popular Originals and licensed features in the Shudder and IFC Films library, Variety reports.

The announcement even reveals the titles of six of the eleven movies that will be receiving special edition physical media releases thanks to this deal: Joko Anwar’s 2017 horror mystery Satan’s Slaves (which was a remake of a 1980 film); Brandon Cronenberg’s 2012 feature directorial debut, the sci-fi horror film Antiviral; the 2015 Turkish horror film Baskin, directed by Can Evrenol; Franck Khalfoun’s 2012 Pov remake of the 1980 slasher classic Maniac; Douglas Buck’s 2006 remake of the 1972 Brian De Palma thriller Sisters; and André Øvredal’s 2016 horror thriller The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

Sisworo Gautama Putra, Naryono Prayitno,...

Sequel to the great Satan's Slaves, “Communion” is the first Indonesian film to be released in IMAX format, and a huge box office success which has already become the third highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time, with 6.3 million viewers.

Satan's Slaves 2: Communion” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

The film begins in the 50's actually, when a photographer is “invited” by a friend into a truly hellish setting, where a number of bodies have been exhumed and used for some sort of satanic ritual, with the friend asking the photographer to do everything in his power to let people know about what is happening. Back in the 80s, several years after they managed to save themselves from the terrible events that resulted in the death of their mother and the youngest sibling, Ian, the family are now living in a block of flats. Rini, Toni and Bondi...

More Talent Joins ‘Agency’

Indonesia’s Miles Films and Sk Global Entertainment have revealed more of the talent participating in their “The Talent Agency” (aka “Harbungi Agen Guei”) the local version of the hit French series, “Call My Agent!.” Other recurring roles go to Sheryl Sheinafia, Chicco Kurniawan, Dea Panendra, and Agni Pratistha. Guest stars in the series—who play a version of themselves—include Luna Maya, Tara Basro, Zara Adhisty, Adipati Dolken, comedians Pandji Pragiwaksono and Soleh Solihun, and young stars Kevin Ardilova and Bio One. The show is now in post-production and will air on Disney+ from next year. Miles Films’ Mira Lesmana and Riri Riza are showrunners with Teddy Soeriaatmadja directing. The show was teased last week at Disney’s content showcase in Singapore.

New Nhk President

Japan’s public broadcaster Nhk has named Inaba Nobuo, former executive director of the Bank of Japan, as its next president.

Indonesian genre kingpin Joko Anwar continues his run of hits with “Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion,” a juicy if slightly overstuffed sequel to his 2017 supernatural horror hit “Satan’s Slaves.” Set in a brutalist concrete apartment block that looks like hell on Earth even before ghouls and zombies start terrorizing the first film’s surviving family members, “Communion” serves up suspense, scares and gallows humor with considerable style. This handsomely mounted widescreen chiller is sure to lure plenty of eyeballs to streaming platform Shudder when unleashed in territories including North America and the U.K. on November 4.

Having enjoyed commercial and critical success for most of the nine features he’s directed since debuting with the delightful romantic comedy “Joni’s Promise” in 2005, Anwar’s stock has never been higher. “Communion” attracted 6.3 million local theatrical admissions in August, making it the third-highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time. “Satan’s Slaves...

Indonesian horror master Joko Anwar’s Satan’s Slaves, a loose remake of the 1980 horror movie, became the highest-grossing domestic Indonesian film of 2017 and continued to terrify audiences across the globe. Between its success, reputation for scares, and an ending that set up a larger mythos, it’s no surprise that Anwar would follow up with a sequel a few years later. Satan’s Slaves: Communion relocates its setting to a high-rise apartment complex and plunges its residents into more expansive horror and storytelling.

Three years after the unsettling events of the first film, the surviving Suwono family members now live in a rundown Jakarta apartment building. Rini (Tara Basro) works at a factory and grapples with whether to go off to college to improve their financial situation or stay and remain a surrogate mom to brothers Toni (Endy Arfian), and Bondi (Nasar Anuz) as dad Bahri (Bront Palarae) sneaks off all the time.

The end of the Halloween Season is always a bit of a sad time for horror fans, but as we always like to remind you each and every year, it’s Halloween Every Day here on Bloody Disgusting.

And wouldn’t you know it, even though Halloween has come and gone there are still several new horror releases headed our way here in the first week of November. Seven of them!

Here’s all the new horror releasing November 1 – November 6, 2022!

First up, Bloody Disgusting has unleashed the brand new Screambox Original horror movie Deep Fear today, which will take you deep into the catacombs exclusively on Screambox.

A post-graduation celebration turns into a fight for survival in the catacombs of Paris in Deep Fear, a Belgian/French survival horror movie that’s also available on VOD outlets now.

“Three students celebrate their graduation by visiting the Paris catacombs. When they...

Stars: Egy Fedly, Tara Basro, Endy Arfian, Nasar Anuz, Bront Palarae, Ratu Felisha, Muzakki Ramdhan | Written and Directed by Joko Anwar

Satan’s Slaves: Communion, or Pengabdi Setan 2: Communion if you prefer, is the newest film from Indonesian writer/director Joko Anwar, It’s no secret I’m a fan of his work and with it being three years since his last film, Impetigore, I was quite ready to see his sequel to the film that brought him international attention, Satan’s Slaves.

The film opens in 1955 with Budiman, the journalist from the first film, being brought to a local observatory where several corpses are arranged as if they were at prayer. There are lots of footprints leading from the cemetery to the building, and the corpses all have muddy feet. The government wants to cover it up but one local official asks him to get the word out.

Joko Anwar blessed horror fans with "Satan's Slaves" in 2018, and now he's back with a compelling sequel that takes haunted house rules and applies them to a busier apartment complex. "Satan's Slaves: Communion" follows "Satan's Slaves" in continuity, hoping to answer questions about cultists with umbrellas, antichrist offspring, and how families move on after satanic rituals. Anwar builds the mythology behind "Satan's Slaves" into something more twisted, which opens as many doors as it closes — not the cleanest evolution in storytelling, but the scares are still tremendous. Whatever's lost in the latter half's exposition dumps is salvaged by Anwar's masterful horror filmmaking sensibilities because while "Satan's Slaves" does reign supreme, that's a loaded comparison to one of the top-ranking horror films of its decade, and since.

It's been several years since Rini (Tara Basro) and her family lost their mother and mute younger sibling Ian (M. Adhiyat). Father Bahri (Bront Palarae...

Sequel to the great Satan’s Slaves, “Communion” is the first Indonesian film to be released in IMAX format, and a huge box office success which has already become the third highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time, with 6.3 million viewers.

Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion is available from Shudder

The film begins in the 50’s actually, when a photographer is “invited” by a friend into a truly hellish setting, where a number of bodies have been exhumed and used for some sort of satanic ritual, with the friend asking the photographer to do everything in his power to let people know about what is happening. Back in the 80s, several years after they managed to save themselves from the terrible events that resulted in the death of their mother and the youngest sibling, Ian, the family are now living in a block of flats. Rini, Toni and Bondi all...

A sequel to Joko Anwar‘s horror movie Satan’s Slaves is on the way, with Deadline announcing that Shudder has acquired Satan’s Slaves: Communion, also directed by Joko Anwar.

Deadline reports, “The film, which is the first Indonesian movie shot with IMAX technology, will stream exclusively on Shudder in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand from November 4. Released theatrically in Indonesia in August, the film became one of the first local productions to score big at the post-pandemic box office.”

The sequel “revolves around a family living in a rundown apartment after escaping terror from their mother, who returned from death, not knowing that their new home is a bigger threat to their lives.”

Tara Basro, Bront Palarae, Endy Arfian, Nasar Anuz, Egi Fedly and Ayu Laksmi are back for the sequel, starring alongside new faces including Muzakki Ramdhan, Fatih Unru, Ratu Felisha,...

Exclusive: AMC Networks’ streaming service Shudder has acquired multiple territory rights to Satan’s Slaves: Communion, the sequel to Shudder Original Satan’s Slaves, from Indonesian writer-director Joko Anwar.

The film, which is the first Indonesian movie shot with IMAX technology, will stream exclusively on Shudder in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand from November 4. Released theatrically in Indonesia in August, the film became one of the first local productions to score big at the post-pandemic box office.

Produced by Tia Hasibuan, Gope T. Samtani and Sunil Samtani, the film revolves around a family living in a rundown apartment after escaping terror from their mother, who returned from death, not knowing that their new home is a bigger threat to their lives.

Returning cast members to the franchise include Tara Basro, Bront Palarae, Endy Arfian, Nasar Anuz, Egi Fedly and Ayu Laksmi. New cast in the sequel includes Muzakki Ramdhan,...

“Satan’s Slaves: Communion,” from genre-film meister Jojo Anwar is poised to be the first film from Indonesia to release in the large screen Imax format.

Anwar himself took to Instagram to make the announcement and tout the film’s release on Saturday.

“Confirmed. Bigger. More thunderous! More fun! Satan’s Slaves: Communion is the first Indonesian film (and the first local film in Southeast Asia) with IMAX technology and will be available in all IMAX cinemas throughout Indonesia!,” he said on the messaging platform. He also teased the nine Imax screens in the country that will showcase the movie.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joko Anwar (@jokoanwar)

The film is a follow-on from his 2017 “Satan’s Slaves” in which a woman and her family are terrorized in their house and learn that the woman’s dead mother was involved in the occult. The new film...

One of the greatest exploits in thehHorror genre over the last few years has been the explosion of talent and quality emerging from Indonesian directors getting their films out to a wider audience. The likes of Timo Tjahjanto, Kimo Stamboel, Rizal Mantovani, and Awi Suryadi, among others, have provided local and international success on an unparalleled level. None of that would be possible, though, if not for director Joko Anwar’s celebrated launch of the movement in his spectacular remake of “Satan’s Slaves.”

After their mother comes down with a mysterious illness, a family including the Father (Bront Palarae), and his kids Rini (Tara Basro), Tony, (Endy Arfian) Bondi (Nasar Annuz), and Ian (M. Adhiyat) try to get by in life despite the strain it puts on the family. Once she finally passes away, the family pays their respects and tries to move on but finds themselves continually haunted...

In the ninth episode of Amp Talks, Panos Kotzathanasis, Adriana Rosati and Don Anelli discuss Impetigore

1. The rise of Indonesian Horror

2. The concept of Wayang (Shadow Puppets) and the way it is implemented in the film

3. Creating a horrific atmosphere without jump scares

4. The importance of the location

5. Making social and philosophical comments through horror films

6. Tara Basro and Ario Bayu...

We are living in the age of extraordinary horror films. The cinematic offerings to satisfy our cravings for a good scare or a story so terrifying it gives us nightmares have taken on many new forms, all exciting — and sometimes challenging. With the 2021 Sundance Film Festival wrapping up, let’s acknowledge that the Park City event has consistently been a great launching pad for new genre voices from around the world (Check out the AMC+ collection of past Sundance winners and festival favorites). Movies that begin their journey there go on to haunt audiences and often reshape our perception of the genre.

In the robust library of AMC+, you can see quite clearly how horror is no longer limited to studio-made films. In indie auteurs’ hands, horror has become the vehicle for stories with distinct points of view. And there are even non-fiction efforts that dig deeper into the significance and craft of revered classics.

Filmmaker Joko Anwar stayed true to his vision for his Indonesian horror film “Impetigore” — so much so that when he found the perfect village to film in, the lack of infrastructure — yes, even a running toilet — didn’t stop them. Instead, they just built what they needed, and left it for the villagers to enjoy.

“We spent three months looking for a village that can resemble the village in the script,” Anwar told TheWrap during the screening of his film for TheWrap’s Screening Series. “We met someone who hiked in the forest, and he said he stumbled upon this village cut off from the modern world. The village was formed in 1941, made for workers who work in the plantation for the Dutch colonialists, and since then, they’ve lived there…. We went there, it matched perfectly with the description for the script. We had to make a path so...

Scary stories and urban legends are always fun and at times can haunt you for the rest of your life. For filmmaker Joko Anwar, it was a scary story that was the inspirational seed that would bloom into Impetigore, Indonesia’s official entry for the Oscar International Feature race.

Written and directed by Anwar, Impetigore follows Maya (Tara Basro), who learns that she may inherit a house in her ancestral village. When she returns to the village with her best friend Dini (Marissa Anita), she’s oblivious to the fact that some villagers have been searching for her — not because they want to give her a house but because they want to kill her to remove a curse that has plagued the village for years. As a result, her trip home turns into a terrifying (and gory) fight for her life which involves, you guessed it, human skin.

During the...

Joko Anwar showed his knack for genre filming and for breaking the box office from his debut, “Janji Joni“, and in the last two years, with movies like “Satan’s Slaves” (remake of the cult classic) and “Gundala” has cemented both of this traits, even in an international level. “Impetigore” in particular, apart from Rotterdam, also screened in Sundance, a quite significant feat since the representation of Asian cinema in the particular festival is scarce, to say the least.

“Impetigore” is Screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

Maya works at a toll booth in Jakarta until one night she is attacked by a strange man with a machete, who seems to know a lot about her past. The girl barely survives but starts researching about what the man said, with her “investigation” leading her to a rural village in the woods, where she was born by parents she never met.

Creepy horror film “Impetigore” by hotshot director Joko Anwar has been selected by Indonesia as its national representative in the Academy Awards’ best international feature film category.

The news was announced by the Indonesian Academy Awards Selection Committee on Tuesday. Anwar quickly retweeted the information, adding: “Hopefully this film can be a good representation and raise the international audiences’ interest in Indonesian films.”

The film, which premiered at the Sundance festival in January this year, tells the story of two women who are not making a great success of big city life, and who return to their home village. While promised an inheritance there, they encounter numerous strange events.

“Impetigore” stars Marissa Anita, Tara Basro, Christine Hakim and Asmara Abigail, who was last year named as an Asian Star Up Next by Variety and the International Film Festival and Awards Macao. The film is handled in the U.S. by Shudder.

This should be a popular one. Rlje Films is releasing Joko Anwar's bloody terrific horror flick Satan's Slaves on DVD and Blur-ray on August 4th. We have three (3) copies to give away to lucky readers in the U.S. Rlje Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has picked up select rights to Satan’S Slaves from Shudder, AMC Networks’ streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural. Satan’S Slaves will be released on August 4, 2020 on DVD and Blu-ray. Written and directed by Joko Anwar (“Halfworlds”), the horror film stars Tara Basro (A Copy of my Mind), Bront Palarae (Belukar), Dimas Aditya (Dear Love), Endy Arfian (Malik & Elsa) and newcomer Nasar Anuz. Rlje Films will release Satan’S Slaves on DVD for...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

by Jason Adams

Impetigore's Tara Basro (L) as "Maya" and Marissa Anita (R) as "Dini"

The concept of the "Funny Best Friend" is nothing new, but I always tend to think of the role in the context of the Romantic Comedy. Think Laura San Giacomo in Pretty Woman, who gets to be so hysterically vulgar and dumb, all the better to make Julia Roberts seem in turn like the classy and smart one. That's what these roles are there in the script for -- these Falstaffian sidekicks, who throw our lead characters' highs and lows into contrast.

But Horror Films have a storied history with these roles as well and this week Shudder premiered one of the best I've seen in awhile -- Marissa Anita playing "Dini" in Indonesian director Joko Anwar's latest fright flick Impetigore. You can drop Anita right down alongside Rose McGowan in Scream, Greta Gerwig...

Today we have an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Gundala. Indonesia's preeminent comic book superhero and his alter ego enter the cinematic universe to battle the wicked Pengkor and his diabolical squad of orphan assassins in the action-packed movie. Written & Directed by Joko Anwar (Impetigore) and based on the comic by Harya Suraminata, the upcoming movie stars Abimana Aryasatya (12:00 A.M.), Tara Basro (Impetigore), Bront Palarae (Belukar), Ario Bayu (Java Heat) and Lukman Sardi (Abracadabra). Gundala will be available on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD July 28th from Well Go USA Entertainment.

Based on a popular comic book first published in 1969, Gundala is the first movie in a proposed eight installment franchise launching a new superhero cinematic universe (in the vein of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). In this origins story, which we caught a glimpse of in the first Gundala trailer, Sancaka (Abimana Aryasatya) is a security guard who was struck by lightning,...

People hope that their relatives will find peace after their deaths, especially when they suffer from a painful terminal illness. That’s certainly the case for actress Tara Basro’s protagonist of Rini, and her recently deceased mother, in the upcoming horror film, ‘Satan’s Slaves.’ Unfortunately, the main character’s mother made a surprising and deadly deal with […]

The post Tara Basro Fights to Make Sure Her Family Doesn’t Become Satan’s Slaves in DVD Giveaway appeared first on Shockya.com.

Stars: Tara Basro, Marissa Anita, Ario Bayu, Christine Hakim, Asmara Abigail, Kiki Narendra, Zidni Hakim, Faradina Mufti, Abdurrahman Arif, Muhammad Abe Baasyin, Mursiyanto, Ahmad Ramadhan | Written and Directed by Joko Anwar

On researching Impetigore I quickly stumbled on why the movie has that slightly strange-sounding punned title: Impetigo (im-puh-tie-go) is a common and highly contagious skin infection that mainly affects infants and children.

So the story is as follows. Maya and her friend Dini discover that Maya might infact inherit a large house out if the city. Struggling with life as it is, they travel together to the Village she was born in, unaware of the curse that has plagued it for years – babies being born without skin

The opening scene to Impetigore is excellent. Perhaps too excellent as it got my hopes up to a point that it never really lived up to that opening exchange. We see...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Amulet (Romola Garai)

Trust is earned, not given. Just because you believe you’re a just person who’d do everything in your power to protect the less fortunate doesn’t mean they should blindly provide their allegiance. They need to know for sure that what you say and do is true. They need to know that you aren’t acting one way via deception in order to act another way later out of some warped notion of entitlement. There are too many people in this world who believe that the bare minimum is worth both material spoils and sainthood to want for nothing in this life and the next.

Life has never been easy for Maya (Tara Basro). Raised by her aunt with no knowledge of her parents’ history, she’s struggled finding her place in the city. Her sole comfort is best friend Dini (Marissa Anita), a tollbooth operator like herself who’s promised to help open a clothing business if they ever save enough money. So when a strange man drives through her lane on a deserted evening three separate times, it’s hard not to fear the worst. No matter how difficult life has been, however, Maya has no intentions of dying—especially not at the hands of a creep who believes she’s someone else. And yet there is something familiar about the name he uses. Whether that realization is good or bad remains to be seen.

This is what we learn during the opening prologue to Joko Anwar’s Impetigore—a wonderful scene reminiscent...

There's a select club of people who make feature films based on their dreams. It's a hard sell because whilst everybody likes the idea of tapping into the unconscious it's difficult to put numbers on that. In Indonesia, however, there's a bit more respect for this approach to storytelling than in the West, and Joko Anwar made such a splash with Satan's Slaves that it's comparatively easy for him to find backers. The result is a film which, though it it's narratively simplistic and suffers from a weak ending, has an emotive quality that is almost folkloric in character. It taps into deep, Jungian terrors and turns confusion into an asset.

Like Satan's Slaves, this is a film about a family legacy, though at the outset heroine Maya (Tara Basro) knows nothing of her family. She's been raised by a relative who is no longer around and doesn't even know.

We're back with another installment of Horror Highlights! In today's feature, we have a look at the trailers for Random Acts of Violence, Lake of Death, and Impetigore, along with details on the 2020 editions of the Blood in the Snow film festival and Grimfest, and a look at Pooka Lives! merchandise:

Watch the Trailer for Random Acts Of Violence:

"*Users can sign-up for a 30-day free trial for new members with promo code Shutin on Shudder.com*

A cult-hit in the making, Jay Baruchel’s long-anticipated Random Acts Of Violence, adapted from the popular 2010 horror graphic novel by the same name, is a force to reckon with. The Canadian filmmaker and actor, best known for his comedic bow in This Is The End and as the voice of Hiccup in the How To Train Your Dragon series, has long been committed to bringing Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti’s...

Prolific hitmaker Joko Anwar further cements his reputation as one of the non-English-speaking world’s foremost fantasy filmmakers with “Gundala,” an action-packed and emotionally satisfying adaptation of the treasured Indonesian comicbook created by Harya “Hasmi” Suraminata. Set in a bleak future-now Jakarta, where the lightning-powered superhero is the city’s last hope against corrupt politicians and a megalomaniac crime boss, “Gundala” packs a few too many characters and side-stories into the mix but as the first entry in a planned series it’ll do very nicely. On the strength of this, a successful franchise with strong international appeal could be in the making. After attracting 1.7 million admissions in domestic theatrical release in late 2019, Anwar’s latest hit will land on Well Go USA’s streaming platform on July 28.

Featuring in 23 comics published between 1969 and 1982, Gundala has made just one prior screen appearance, in Lilek Sudijo’s cheesy but enjoyable “Gundala...

Rlje Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has picked up select rights to Satan’S Slaves from Shudder, AMC Networks’ streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural. Satan’S Slaves will be released on August 4, 2020 on DVD and Blu-ray.The trailer looks terrifying:

Now you can win the Win the DVD of Satan’S Slaves. We Are Movie Geeks has two copies to give away. Just leave a comment below telling us what your favorite movie with the word ‘Satan’ in the title. (mine’s Blood On Satan’S Claw. It’s so easy!)

1. You Must Be A Us Resident. Prize Will Only Be Shipped To Us Addresses. No P.O. Boxes. No Duplicate Addresses.

2. Winner Will Be Chosen From All Qualifying Entries.

Written and directed by Joko Anwar (“Halfworlds”), the horror film stars Tara Basro (A Copy of my Mind), Bront Palarae (Belukar), Dimas Aditya (Dear Love), Endy Arfian...

Joko Anwar scored Indonesia’s highest-grossing horror hit ever with “Satan’s Slaves,” a remake-slash-prequel to Sisworo Gautama Putra’s beloved if campy 1980 original. Already another big success at home, his followup “Impetigore” is likewise a rebooting tribute to past celluloid horrors, given the familiar feel to its tale of a prodigal-daughter heroine returning to a native village that’s cursed by black magic.

Less dependent on jump scares than “Slaves” (though there are still a few), this handsome and atmospheric production is good, sometimes grisly fun that’s not terribly scary, particularly once hectic climactic events prove less suspenseful than the slow-burn buildup. Despite doing huge box office in Asia (where it opened after its premiere in Sundance’s midnight section), “Impetigore” probably won’t be Anwar’s breakout moment among Western genre fans, though he’ll surely have one sooner or later.

Tara Basro, who’s been in virtually...

Looking to add some scares to your summer that you can enjoy from the great indoors? Shudder has you covered this July with an eclectic set of horror films both old and new, including the first three Sleepaway Camp movies, all three Maniac Cop films, the ’80s horror documentary In Search of Darkness, The Beach House, The Burning, The Return of the Living Dead, and more!

Below, you can check out the full list of titles coming to Shudder in the Us this July, and be sure to visit Shudder's website to learn more about the streaming service and their scary good lineup!

"Metamorphosis

In this fresh spin on a demonic possession story, Joong-Su, an exorcist, must face a demon he tragically failed to defeat in the past when it targets his brother’s family next. The demon assumes the form of different family members to sow confusion and distrust,...

Plano, Texas –Indonesia’s preeminent comic book superhero and his alter ego enter the cinematic universe to battle the wicked Pengkor and his diabolical squad of orphan assassins in the action-packed “Gundala“, debuting on Digital, Blu-ray and DVD July 28 from Well Go USA Entertainment.

Based on a popular comic book first published in 1969, “Gundala”is the first film in a proposed eight film franchise launching a new superhero cinematic universe (in the vein of Marvel). In this origins story, Sancaka (Abimana Aryasatya) is a security guard who was struck by lightning, giving him superhuman powers and turning him into the superhero Gundala. “Gundala”had its international premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and this release features an all-new English dub, in addition to its original subtitled soundtrack.

Written & Directed by Joko Anwar (“Impetigore“) and based on the comic by Harya Suraminata, “Gundala” stars Abimana Aryasatya (“12:00 A.

Superhero and comic book-based movies have become the most popular genre over recent years, with the likes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and varying output of DC lighting up both the screen and the box office on a regular basis. Well, we have now been given our first official look at a superhero origin tale entitled Gundala, an Indonesian superhero film that premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival.

The trailer introduces audiences to main character Sancaka, a security guard who is struck by lightning, which rather than killing him, gives him superhuman powers and turns him into the superhero Gundala. Donning a costume that looks like it was thrown together following a sale at a Disney store, Gundala fights to protect his city, Jakarta, from the corrupt influences and evildoers within it. The movie looks wonderfully absurd, with the trailer emphasizing all of the extreme martial arts action...

"Who are you?" "The people." Well Go USA has released an official Us trailer for the Indonesian superhero action movie Gundala, from writer / director Joko Anwar. Indonesia's preeminent comic book superhero and his alter ego Sancaka enter the cinematic universe to battle the wicked Pengkor and his diabolical squad of orphan assassins. While it may look like this character was made for the big screen, he originally comes from an Indonesian comic book series of the same name. Follow the story of Sancaka, an orphan who lost his father during a riot, intertwined with Pengkor, an orphan who (also) lost his father during a riot. One got struck by lightning, the other got burned by fire. Starring Abimana Aryasatya as the heroic Gundala, and Bront Palarae as Pengkor, with Tara Basro, Ario Bayu, and Lukman Sardi. This looks like a badass superhero movie! Fun to see different versions of superheroes from other countries.

The interview was conducted in 2017

Joko Anwar is already an established filmmaker, both in his country and internationally. He started his career in cinema as a film critic, continued as a scriptwriter, while his directorial debut came in 2005, with “Joni’s Promise”. His next two films “Kala” and “Forbidden Door“, received rave reviews from critics, and screened in festivals all over the world. In 2012 he shot “Ritual” and in 2015 “A Copy of my Mind“

We talk to him about his career, his success, making movies, violence and humor, and many more issues.

Before becoming a filmmaker, you were a film critic. Did that affect the way you look at films and the way you deal with critics?

When I was a critic, I was actually looking at films the way I had been before I was a critic: as a fan of films. And I am still now. I never looked for something to criticize.

The Shudder acquisitions keep rolling in, making it the go-to streaming platform for horror fans looking for the latest horror releases from around the world. Following a premiere at Sundance, Shudder announced that it's picking up rights to Satan's Slaves director Joko Anwar's latest film. The press release and official trailer can be found below:

"May 8, 2020 — Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, announced today that it has acquired all rights in its territories to Impetigore, Joko Anwar’s hit horror film which had its international premiere at Sundance after a smash run in Anwar’s home country of Indonesia, where it was the fifth highest-grossing release of 2019. Impetigore will premiere on Shudder in the Us, Canada and the UK on July 23.

Anwar’s award-winning supernatural movie, Satan’s Slaves, was released as a Shudder Original in 2018. Satan’s Slaves has been a top performing title...

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, has acquired all rights in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. to “Impetigore,” the hit horror movie by Indonesian genre-meister Joko Anwar. After placing in the box office top five at home in 2019, the film had its international debut in Sundance this year.

The film is a horror-thriller about a woman who discovers that her neighbors think she is cursed and want to kill her. Writer-director, Anwar called the film “my love letter to horror movies I grew up with, slashers, ghost stories, wrapped in a tragic family drama not unlike my family.”

The film, which also carried the local title “Perempuan Tanah Jahanam,” stars Tara Basro (“Satan’s Slaves”), Marissa Anita, (HBO Asia’s “Folklore: A Mother’s Love”), Ario Bayu (“Dead Time”), veteran Christine Hakim, and Asmara Abigail. She previously starred in Anwar’s “Satan’s Slaves...

One of the more surprising Midnighters this writer saw at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival was Joko Anwar’s Impetigore, a gnarly and visceral waking nightmare of a journey that kept me guessing from start to finish. While at the fest, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Anwar, as well as a trio of the film’s co-stars—Marissa Anita, Tara Basro, and Christine Hakim—about their collaboration on Impetigore. During our interview, they chatted about the real-life inspirations behind certain story aspects of the film, being a part of Anwar’s impassioned team, and how one actress signed on for the project before even reading the script for Impetigore.

Here’s hoping we get some distribution news for Impetigore here in the States, because it’s a film that truly deserves to be seen by as many genre fans as possible.

Congrats on the film, guys. The first...

After being attacked at her job as a toll booth operator by a frenzied stranger, Maya (Tara Basro) retreats into her new job working at a discount clothing stall to try to separate herself from the trauma of the experience. Who was the man that attacked her and why? He seemed to know some things about her that she didn't even understand. Curious about the event and the fact that her attacker mentioned her rural hometown, Maya decides to return to her roots with her friend Dini (Marissa Anita), to see if she really left anything behind, including a rather large house that she's surely in the line of succession for. When the pair arrive, they discover a village largely untouched in by the decades...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, a fiction debut that screened at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, is a tale of a rural people displaced. In this case, by Lesotho’s provincial officials, who want to re-appropriate the land to construct a dam. Contemporary cinema has featured a similar plot a number of times, perhaps most famously in Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (2006). But in Mosese’s ambitious, mournful film, the uprooting runs deeper. The central character, Mantoa (Mary Twala Mhlongo), is an eighty-year-old widow who learns that her son, who’s been working in the South African mines, has died. The worn-out Mantoa wakes up each day yearning for her own demise. But when her community is ordered to move, she realizes that her remains will not rest among her ancestors, in the village cemetery. Mantoa then...

Joko Anwar showed his knack for genre filming and for breaking the box office from his debut, “Janji Joni“, and in the last two years, with movies like “Satan’s Slaves” (remake of the cult classic) and “Gundala” has cemented both of this traits, even in an international level. “Impetigore” in particular, apart from Rotterdam, also screened in Sundance, a quite significant feat since the representation of Asian cinema in the particular festival is scarce, to say the least.

“Impetigore” is screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam

Maya works at a toll booth in Jakarta until one night she is attacked by a strange man with a machete, who seems to know a lot about her past. The girl barely survives but starts researching about what the man said, with her “investigation” leading her to a rural village in the woods, where she was born by parents she never met.

As I sit here wondering just what on earth happened to 2019, it’s already time to start looking towards a new year, and more specifically, the prestigious 2020 Sundance Film Festival, which runs in Park City, Utah from January 23rd through February 2nd. As always, Sundance’s lineup of Midnight movies looks to be killer, but there are several other films that are playing the festival in different categories that look to be something genre fans might get excited over, too.

Here’s a rundown of the horror films hitting Sundance next month, as well as a handful of genre-adjacent projects to keep on your radars for 2020.

Midnight Selections:

Amulet / United Kingdom — Tomaz, an ex-soldier now homeless in London, is offered a place to stay at a decaying house, inhabited by a young woman and her dying mother. As he starts to fall for Magda, Tomaz cannot ignore his suspicion that...

Screenplay Films, Bumilangit Studios plan superhero franchise.

Premiere Entertainment Group has launched talks with Afm buyers on worldwide rights excluding Indonesia to Toronto Midnight Madness selection Gundala.

The Indonesian superhero action film from Screenplay Films and Bumilangit Studios is conceived as the first in a franchise. It charts the central character’s origins as an orphaned boy in Jakarta who gains powers after he is struck by lightning and goes to war against a mob boss.

Abimana Aryasatya, Tara Basro, Bront Palarae, and Ario Bayu star, and Joko Anwar directed from his screenplay. Bismarka Kurniawan and Wicky V. Olindo served as producers,...

Tara Basro is a permanent addition to your latest works. How come? In general, what was the casting process like for the film? Was it difficult to direct the children actors, particularly in the scary scenes?

In “Satan’s Slaves”, Tara went through audition process like everybody else. The casting process was quite difficult, especially finding the child actors and the one to fill the dad character, because good actors above 50 years are not that many in Indonesia. Like in any other project of mine, I auditioned the actors myself. That way I can get to know them better, at early stage and to find out if an actor posses the qualities needed for a character. It saves time during pre-production.

I love directing child actors, or non-actors in general because they don’t have pre-existing beliefs on how acting should be, thus they are easier to direct. During the...

One of the most celebrated Indonesian horror efforts, the original “Satan’s Slaves” (or Pengabdi Setan) was initially released during the height of the country’s horror boom in the early 1980s by Sisworo Gautama Putra, one of the leading horror directors of the time. Now in 2017, a remake of the original becomes poised to offer the same overall impact for its director, Joko Anwar, with one of the most enjoyable efforts of the year.

The film screened as part of Five Flavours Asian Horror Night

After their mother comes down with a mysterious illness, a family including the Father (Bront Palarae), and his kids Rini (Tara Basro), Tony, (Endy Arfian) Bondi (Nasar Annuz) and Ian (M. Adhiyat) try to get by in life despite the strain it puts on the family. Once she finally passes away, the family pay their respects and try to move on but find themselves...

Even as his latest comicbook superhero film “Gundala” prepares for release later this month, the trailer for “Impetigore”, director Joko Anwar’s fourth film of 2019, yet again a horror film, as been released.

Synopsis

After surviving a murder attempt in the city, Maya, a down-on-her-luck young woman, learns that she may inherit a house in her ancestral village. With her friend Dini, Maya returns to the village of her birth, unaware that the community has been trying to locate and kill her to remove the curse that has plagued the village for years. As she begins to discover the complicated reality about her past, Maya finds herself in a fight for her life.

The film stars Tara Basro (“Satan’s Slave“), Ariyo Bayu (also in “Gundala”), Marissa Anita (“Folklore: A Mother’s Love“) and Christine Hakim (“Merantau”) and is distributed by South Korea’s Cj Entertainment. It is expected to...

It wasn’t until 2006 that cult Indonesian horror film Satan’s Slave finally received a DVD pressing after accruing its mystique without subtitles courtesy of a Japanese VHS. The 1980 release from director Sisworo Gautama Putra has been called an unofficial remake of Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm, its supernatural haunting steeped in Muslim beliefs and Indonesian folklore rather than the usual Christian trappings associated with the Devil. The pedigree it holds therefore made it unsurprising that Joko Anwar (who grew up on genre fare spanning horror to kung fu) would seek to helm a remake. It may have taken more than ten years to turn that dream into a reality, but Satan’s Slaves becoming his nation’s best-selling domestic release ever proves it was worth the wait.

The 1981-set movie begins with an older woman chanting under her breath in bed, an obvious sickness having taken control of her body three years previously.

The review was made based on the four first episodes of the series.

As HBO Asia has decided, during the latest years, to create original shows using filmmakers from S and Se Asia, Joko Anwar seemed liked one of the most logical choices, particularly since “Halfworlds” falls under the supernatural horror category, where the Indonesian thrives. Let us see the result of this cooperation though.

As explained quite eloquently in the introductory animation, a tribe of bloodthirsty creatures called Demit have been living in Jakarta, alongside humans, for centuries. Their presence has been kept a secret with the help of powerful family of mortals, but as a supernatural event known as the Gift is about to arrive, this secret does not seem safe at all. At the same time, a young street painter named Sarah finds herself caught between a war that seems unavoidable, even affecting her boyfriend Coki and a friend named Pinung.

The 27th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) is in full swing, and recently had a second showing of the new Indonesian musical, “Three Sassy Sisters.” Major players in the world of Indonesian cinema gathered at the Shaw Lido Theatre to have a chance to watch this strong piece. The film’s director, Nia Dinata, and starring actors, Tara Basro, Reuben Elishama, Richard Kyle, and Titek Puspa, were all the center of attention.

“Three Sassy Sisters” is a catchy musical, which honors the 1956 classic, “Tiga Dara.” Dinata uses this film to take a look at how modern women can change their roles from ordinary housewives, to career-oriented workingwomen. Dinata has been a powerhouse director for quite some time, with other work such as “The Courtesan” and “Love for Share” receiving Academy Award nominations for best foreign film.

Still from “Tiga Dara”

The Sgiff began on November 23, 2016 and will run until December...