Gory, chilling curse in Camerons
HIPPIES and horror. These words combined, bring back memories of the gruesome death of US actress Sharon Tate at the hands of Charles Manson and his drugged gang.
Acclaimed director of photography Raja Mukhriz’s directorial debut on the silver screen is a bit like the tragic story of Tate, because a beautiful woman dies at the hands of drugged men in the hippie 1970s.
Nevertheless, the man behind skinhead story Ophilia resurrects the victim and turns her into a vengeful ghost who terrorises her killers like what Freddy Krueger does in the Nightmare On Elm Street series.
In the process, Raja Mukhriz brings Malaysians a gruesome tribute to 1970s culture almost as chilling as Hollywood classics from that era, such as The Exorcist, The Omen and The Amityville Horror.
7ujuh waited five years to be released, but the director has not lost any sleep over this delay.
In fact, the timing is just right for its young and promising cast especially Marsha, Pekin, Johan, Cristina and Siti Saleha who only became household names during the waiting period.
Written by Ellyna Ahmad and set in 1977 Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands, 7ujuh in a nutshell is about “seven friends, seven sins and seven acts of revenge”.
It tells the story of a university’s student council candidate Sam (Johan with a hairdo resembling Milla Jovovich in Ultraviolet) who throws a party at his family’s highland bungalow for his close friends.
Six of his pals Mus (Pekin), Ray (Riz), Ilyas (Aeril), Yasmin (Cristina), Emma (first-timer Dee Dee) and Tina (Siti Saleha) choose to spend the night with him.
They are soon introduced to the caretaker, a Senoi chief simply known as Tok Batin (Wan Hanafi) and his beautiful daughter Suri (Marsha).
Sam and Suri were childhood friends, but little does he know she has developed feelings for him. Thus, she feels uneasy in the presence of Sam’s female guests who flirt with him.
Things get worse when snobbish Tina makes bigoted remarks against Suri, calling her “orang hulu”. During the party, some of the male guests offer Suri alcoholic drinks and make advances at her.
Then just before the party is over, a battered, bruised and bloodied Suri emerges from her bedroom and curses Sam and his pals before jumping from the edge of the small hill on which the bungalow sits.
Within the next 24 hours, Sam, Mus, Ray, Ilyas, Yasmin, Emma and Tina encounter nightmares in which the ghost of Suri attacks them and causes their deaths in horrific ways, e.g. crashing through windows, getting burnt inside chimneys and getting impaled by flying fences.
The following night, one of them really dies, and this forces the other six friends to “stay awake” for as long as it takes. They also seek the help of Tok Batin, and when the district police chief (Faizal) pays them a visit, they pretend not to know of Suri’s whereabouts.
It pays to have a cinematographer as Raja Mukhriz helm this film, as its scenes of 1970s Cameron Highlands are picture perfect. Its special effects are superb, too, especially those which “crack” the walls and smash the windows of Sam’s haunted bungalow, Amityville Horror style.
As for the ensemble cast, Johan, Pekin and Aeril look believable as hippies, and their facial expressions plus the colour of their clothes are tell-tale signs of who Suri’s vicious killers are.
Cristina and Siti Saleha also nail it as the voice of reason Yasmin and the elitist Tina respectively, and it is refreshing to have Siti Saleha play a bad girl for a change.
The star of the show is undoubtedly Marsha, whose Suri wears a perpetual whimper on her face like a jilted lover suffering in silence.
Her last moments alive are heart-wrenching, particularly because she utters her curse like a truly tormented soul, and the pain that she has gone through is clearly visible in her blood-shot eyes.
Suri the ghost is as scary as it gets, and her jet-black eyes look very menacing. The ways she “executes” her tormentors are cruel and bloody, especially the one involving a large, spiky fence.
As for award-winning veteran Faizal, he looks perfect as a 1970s police chief complete with his khaki green uniform. He is every bit the “gentleman cop” of that era, and his protective presence seems to calm audiences’ fears of Suri’s ghost.
Wan Hanafi’s Tok Batin is dignified and wise, but both he and Suri look geographically incorrect because Camerons’ indigenous people, the Senoi, are generally dark-skinned with curly hair.
Minor blips aside, 7ujuh is a brilliant horror story that deserves a sequel from Raja Mukhriz. Audiences should keep their eyes and ears open from beginning to end because the early dialogues and scenes give hints about what will happen later.
NOW SHOWING
7UJUH
DIRECTOR Raja Mukhriz Raja Ahmad Kamaruddin
STARRING Johan As’ari, Marsha Milan Londoh, Pekin Ibrahim, Cristina Suzanne Stockstill, Siti Saleha Baharom, Dee Dee Nash, Riz Amin, Aeril Zafrel, Wan Hanafi Su, Azad Jazmin, Faizal Hussein
DURATION 90 minutes
RATING PG13