DANGEROUS SEDUCTRESS

We've all too familiar with the phrase "it's so bad it's good" (originally coined by the late cultural critic Susan Sontag), but these are the terms through which the Indonesian horror DANGEROUS SEDUCTRESS happily plays out. Bad out weighs good some 95% to 5%, but the filmmakers prove resourceful enough to achieve a fine balance of the two poles. Deviating from its '80s American soap opera aesthetic with madcap scenes of bloody non-sequitors, it cultivates an atmosphere of infectious insanity.

In Jakarta, the violent aftermath of a bank robbery leaves the required amount of spilled blood to revive the beautiful, green-eyed Queen of Darkness. Emerging from her hellish prison, she kills a dog to put flesh on her exposed bones but is dragged back into the netherworld by hands beneath the graveyard.

Over in L.A. glamour puss Susan leaves her hunky, well off but abusive husband John on their anniversary, after he beats her up and tries to rape her. Taking refuge with her film star sister in Jakarta - Linda (who, incidentally, witnessed the demise of the bank robbers) - bored Susan stays at home with a pair of oversized shades on while her cuts and bruises heal.

Finding a supernatural book given to Linda by a BBC documentary film-maker (!), Susan invokes the deadly text and is granted untold powers of seduction - at the price of spilling the blood of the men she goes with. Soon enough, she leaves a trail of sex and death behind her as the Queen of Darkness stores up the power to emerge forever from the other side of the mirror…

Lacking the beauty and craftsmanship that characterizes many Mondo Macabro choices, DANGEROUS SEDUCTRESS nonetheless proves chaotic enough to be wildly enjoyable. Despite opening with off-putting badness, this slice of Indonesian mayhem is committed to wallowing in clichés before ripping them to pieces: the bungled bank robbery (yawn), who's seriously pissed off gang leader keeps on punching his own getaway driver in the mouth (!); and the Beautiful People's anniversary in an L.A mansion…that drifts off into a near porno-rape punch up. Although nursing a bad reputation, even among enthusiasts of Indonesian cinema, it is a film that continually surprises until the more mundane magic show ending closes things off.

In spite of this, one cannot hail DANGEROUS SEDUCTRESS anything near the status of masterpiece, because there are plentiful bad bits that don't seem to be deliberate: the lengthy fashion photo shoots being chief offenders. The film is horrendously structured, and it takes around half and hour - and a shift from Jakarta to L.A. and then back again - to establish that Susan and Linda are sisters. Like LADY TERMINATOR, the film is flooded with a gauzy haze that stands in for an adequate visual style; and the laser show FX are low rent enough to have been used more sparingly. Acting is off-kilter throughout: the vacant American actors spew the ultimate in stilted dialogue, whereas most of the Indonesians struggle with the English language. This combination could be a disaster in any other film, but in this case allows us distance from a movie that we're not supposed to take seriously.

Extras include a 15-minute interview with the director, as he discusses not only the making of this but also LADY TERMINATOR, and FX Steve Prouty gives a four minute audio commentary near the beginning where he does his most impressive work. As with LADY, we get a Djalil bio and a text essay on Indonesian trash cinema to thankfully put things into context.

Review by Matthew Sanderson

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