If there are two signatures to Indonesian horror, they would be an overwhelming sense of relentless dread, and poisonous centipedes.
The Queen of Black Magic has plenty of both, and an enthralling supernatural siege story binding everything together so tight you ll barely be able to breathe.
This sinister monarch is actually a sort-of remake of the 1981 Indonesian horror of the same name, which was actually an unlicensed spin-off from
Black Magic and
Black Magic 2, the mid-Seventies hyper-gruesome horrors by Hong Kong action experts the Shaw Brothers. The script by Joko Anwar follows much the same broad approach as he did with his own revolutionary remake of groundbreaking 1981 shocker