MYSTICS IN BALI (1981)
Starring Ilona Agathe Bastian and Yos Santo
Not for all tastes, "Mystics in Bali" (also known as "Leák" in its native Indonesia)
is an entertaining "outsider" movie. By our highbrow western world standards,
it's a bad movie -- but it's a good bad movie, if you know what I mean. It has
all the charm of a cheesy Italian zombie film. Just none of the gore.
It also boasts an extremely memorable flying severed heads, with lungs and
other organs hanging from its neck.
When I generally think of Indonesia, I usually just envision Islamists rioting
in the streets because of one U.S. atrocity or another. I never thought
that a society with so much religious zeal could ever produce a piece of
motion picture sleaze. But they're doing it -- or at least they were doing
it in the early 1980s -- and "Mystics in Bali" is proof.
Like a spaghetti splatter film, "Mystics in Bali" is badly dubbed, and tries
to make up for its non-U.S. setting by casting someone who's supposedly an
American in the lead role. Bastian plays a U.S. writer working on a book about
black magic. Bastian was actually a German tourist with no acting experience,
whom the producers convinced to star in the movie. She becomes interested in
the cult that revolves around Leák, a dark magic deity. Big mistake to mess with
that religion. Her character's boyfriend (Santo) is a native Indonesian who knows a thing
or two about the subject. He hooks his
western girlfriend up with a hideous and very old local witch who introduces
her to the art of Leák worship.
The witch also puts some of kind of spell on the girl, enabling
the old hag to magically
possess the western writer's severed head whenever she's in the mood. The head flies
around the neighborhood with its lungs hanging from its neck. The levitating
head sucks the blood of newborn babies. A group of local priests have to seek
guidance from "almighty God" to figure out a way to capture
the head and bring about an end to the carnage.
Produced in a nation where mobs of religious zealots still murder alleged witches,
this movie is pretty damn interesting. "Off the beaten path" would be an understatement.
By the end of hte story, all the female characters have become villains,
and the men are the only ones with enough spiritual integrity
to fight them. The final battle features an old man wearing white against the
disfigured witch, who's taken on the form of a pig with breasts(!). Far out, man.
An entertaining mind fuck of a movie, with bad effects and even worse dubbing,
By my sleaze-hungry western standards, "Mystics in Bali" would have benefited from more
gore and at least a little sexy. But it did emerge out of Indonesia -- not Italy -- and
big-screen sex was apparently against the law out there when this flick was produced.
Ultimately the film stands out as a highly entertaining bit of odd cult cinema. The
fine DVD from Xploited Cinema includes a documentary on Indonesian fantasy and
exploitation films. Like any foreign food, you can attain a taste for the cuisine
if you give it a chance. "Mystics in Bali" won't appeal to all tastes, but it certainly
will appeal to some.
Directed by H. Tjut Djalil