Nekoneko’s Movie Litterbox!!

Well… seems I’ve restored functionality to my system before October completely slipped by, and so Neko-chan can now share with you again her love of all things ghostly and asian movie wise….

This time out, it’s the Indonesian fright fest “Tali Pocong Perawan” or “Dead Virgin’s String”. Yep.. another of those Indo ghost stories, this time by way of the Malay release by PMP Entertainment.

The synopsis reads as follows:“Nino is a weird guy with a strange personality. Unlike Nino, his brother Aldo is a more outgoing and popular guy. Unsurprisingly, it is easy for Aldo to be with any girl he likes, notably a pretty girl named Virnie. Nino who behaves awkwardly also has feelings for Virnie. Unbeknownst to Aldo and Virnie, Nino often peeps at them together inside the house in intimate moments. This continues until Nino finally decided to steal Virnie away from his own brother. While surfing through the internet, Nino discovers a legend about strings that are taken from female virgin corpses. This certain string has a power that can attract the heart of any women. The way the string must be obtained is by using hands to dig out the grave of a female virgin and then taking off the cotton string by using the mouth. All these feelings of love that Nino has for Virnie, blinds him into thinking not clearly. He finds a virgin corpse that has recently been buried. After getting this mysterious string, he mixes it into the water that is intended for Virnie to drink. Will Nino succeed in stealing Virnie with the string’s power?”

Hmmmm? A creepy Peeping Tom…. schoolgirl suicides…. evil Internet magic lessons…. and floaty shroud covered ghosts…. Yes indeed, Neko’s soooo gonna watch this one. But is it worth it? You’ll just have to “Read On” and find out, now won’t ya?

The supernatural threat in this one is the pocong. It’s an Indonesian/ Malaysian folklore ghost that always appears wrapped up in a dirty white burial shroud and haunts people mercilessly. The Indonesians love these kind of films… but Neko just ends up scratching her lil’ noggin. What’s so scary about the pocong anyway? He (or she… they always have a unisex bag/person/mummy thing going on so it’s really hard to tell one from another…) just seems to follow the victim around popping up at times to surprise them but never actually seem to do anything particularly dangerous…… It drives the Indonesian people absolutely batshit crazy with fear but this lil’ Catgirl can’t truly see what all the fuss is about. I mean…. the Kuntilanak twists your head off. The Sundel Bolong rips you to shreds. This guy seems…. well… kinda tame in comparison. If we have any Indonesian readers here at the ol’ Litterbox please chime in and let Neko in on the secret of it’s scary nature cause I’m just sorta clueless here.

Be that as it may….. this one starts out promisingly. Nino lives with his brother Aldo, all around nice and normal guy. Nino, however, is just one really creepy guy. The obsession he has with his brothers sweet girlfriend Virnie is downright crazy considering Virnie’s best friend has the biggest crush on this geek. Does he notice that? Nope….. Instead he just decides to possess Virnie by whatever means he can…. even Black Magic. Luckily there seems to be a folklore tradition about female corpses in Indonesia possessing just the right magic mojo within 40 days after death that means Nino can brew himself up a love philter to bewitch Virnie and make her love him. Sounds familiar… after all they do pretty much the same thing in Thailand and China in movies like this. If Nino had been paying attention, he’d know just how stupid an idea this truly is.

Anyway, thanks to the Internet, he finds a multi part tutorial on just what to do…. starting with a little grave robbing to steal the thong that ties a dead virgin’s shroud together. First… he blows it trying to break into a morgue looking for such a trinket. Luckily for him, just such a girl committed suicide just this week, hanging herself from the roof of the local college. Here I have to wonder about Nino’s reasoning powers… after all there is usually only one reason girls hang themselves in these sorts of movies…. and it usually isn’t because they are virgins…… That in itself would tend to make one think Nino’s sure fire plan is doomed, but he completely misses that thought.

After evading the two doofuses assigned to guard the grave during that crucial 40 day period, he gets the string…. in a particularly nasty way….. by untying it and removing it from the grave with only his teeth….. Eeeewwwhhh!! He brews up his potion, slips it in Virnie’s morning orange juice, but fails to get her to drink it. Yep, a lucky spill on her part saves her, although Nino doesn’t know that of course….

When Virnie fails to show any romantic interest in him he loses it. Here’s where he betrays his ignorance but good, by destroying the string, burning it to a crisp in a fit of frustrated anger, only to find out on the internet site that under no circumstances must you ever do that…. unless you want the ghost of the virgin to become a pocong and haunt you. What? You mean Nino didn’t read the entire Black Magic lesson on this before starting? What sort of idiot starts casting evil spells off the internet without reading the whole thing first? By now…. Neko just wants to see this creep dead. Thankfully, the pocong is on the job and it’s not long before Nino is seeing the ghost everywhere. Unfortunately, this is also where the story bogs down…..

The pocong is just… well… er….. sort of boring. The most active thing it manages to do to Nino is vomit a few worms on him. Not even cool flesh devouring “Corpse Worms from Hell” either… just plain ol’ worms. Somehow, Nino still goes insane…. eventually killing himself to escape the ghost. You’d think that would be the end of it. But you’d be wrong……

See, this is where Indonesian films sometimes lose it…. Seems that the pocong wants to haunt Aldo and Virnie too. They can’t figure out why…… they haven’t angered any spirits, or have they? Well…. in a totally stupid plot “tack on”, it seems that Aldo completely forgets about his last girlfriend…. the one he dumped for Virnie and that threw herself off the roof committing suicide. Somehow, despite the fact he claims to have been her best friend forever, he missed that little news flash. Nobody seems to have mentioned her funeral or anything…. some BFF…..

This lapse in common sense and continuity aside… the ghost starts haunting them too with the same lame tricks. It finally drives Aldo to attempt suicide to pay back the girl for the wrong done her. By now, Neko doesn’t really care…. and neither would you. Let’s just say it all gets wrapped up satisfactorily but without feeling logical.

Neko has to say this one was disappointing. Well filmed… well acted…. with some nice makeup and effects, but just too badly written to make simple sense. Neko can only give “Tali Pocong Perawan” a lame 2 “Meows” out of 5. Perhaphs if the pocong was scarier…. maybe I’d give it one more “Meow” but somehow I doubt it. The Malay disc by PMP entertainment is excellent… with good separate english subtitles, a letterbox format and a nice price of 6$ US or so direct from Malaysia. If you want to see this one, this is definitely the way to go… trust this girl.

Sigh…. Neko wants scary!! Where are you o’ Kuntilanak, when I need you!!

There a Trailer available, and as always, I leave it here for you to get a lil’ look see for yourself!