Suzzanna: The Queen of Black Magic (2024) Movie Script
1
When we talk about the
world of horror movies,
there are names identified with
horror, like:
But there is another name that I think
surpasses every one of them.
And her name is...
Suzzanna.
Dominating horror films
produced in the 19805 and '905.
Miss Suzzanna
can never be replaced.
She could play a role
with just her gaze.
It was so powerful.
Wow.
Her piercing stare
and cold expression
made the late Suzzanna
such a mysterious figure.
She was fully into the world
of traditional rural mysticism.
Suzzanna was not
only a horror actress,
but also a symbol
of our audience's devotion
to Indonesian films.
This was Suzzanna's room.
These were her clothes,
the ones that she wore
in her final films.
These were a source
of pride for Suzzanna.
And this was Suzzanna's favorite:
water with jasmine in it.
This is the water she usually drank
to nourish her soul.
Smells good.
She drank the water,
and she ate the jasmine.
Like chewing candy or peanuts.
The taste was sweet.
It was her favorite.
Suzzanna died here.
When we are "called home,"
we are prepared.
We are not afraid.
Our shaman is dead.
I'm Murni...
Queen of black magic.
Everyone still talks about her
because she represents
many good things
about Indonesian film.
If I want to scare you, it must
come from here, from within.
It's the same as declaring
love for someone in a movie.
Say it with your heart.
When I worked with Suzzanna,
her movies had a huge audience.
Your mother right here
is the most powerful in this world.
A lot of people watched.
I don't know how many.
Millions of people.
Suzzanna bathed here.
Meditated here, bathed here.
The prayers,
the wishes.
When we were done,
we'd open our mouths.
Three times.
Three drops on our tongues.
It meant our wishes
would come true.
But if we missed one drop,
we'd have to repeat the process
for at least 35 more days.
Her name was
Suzanna Martha Frederika van Osch.
It sounds Dutch.
But she's actually mixed race.
When Indonesia was
colonized by the Dutch,
there was assimilation.
Suzzanna's father was a soldier
in the Dutch army.
He was on duty in
Subang, West Java,
when he was shot by the Japanese.
Dead.
Her mother was six
months pregnant at the time.
Heard the news...
Shocked.
She started bleeding
and was admitted
to the hospital.
Suzzanna was born
in Bogor.
October 13, 1942.
Her birth was premature.
For six months,
she had a yellow body
and stayed in an incubator.
Her mother returned to Holland.
From childhood,
she was cared for by her grandmother.
She was just called "Susi."
I loved to pick flowers with her.
"Let's pick some flowers."
If there was a car passing,
we both got down on the ground.
Her father was Dutch,
but her grandma was Javanese.
So she got along fine.
We went to different schools.
She was in Pendowo,
at a Catholic school.
Suzzanna was quickly popular
because she was lively.
During recess
she'd suddenly do
the splits!
With her legs, you know.
Yes, indeed.
She loved to tell her friends,
"I'm going to be a famous movie star."
In the second year,
she suddenly disappeared.
Later, I heard she was
in Jakarta, acting in movies.
There was a search for
new, young actresses
and celebrity faces.
Then she was cast in
ASRAMA DARA.
That's where Suzzanna first got
recognition as an actress.
And it was in that environment
that she learned a lot,
maybe because she
was tutored by Usmar Ismail.
The one I like the most is
Mom's movie ASRAMA DARA.
How old are you?
Eighteen!
Me, I'm nineteen,
minus...
Minus a little bit.
It best represented Mom.
That was what her daily life looked like.
Since she was a little girl, the whole
family knew what she wanted to be.
"I want to be a movie star."
But it turned out to be true.
Look at my mom,
she has become a respected woman.
Yes, all of her
friends watched it.
Of course,
she was so happy.
"Am I good?"
"You're good, Suz."
In 1960, the second
Indonesian Film Festival took place.
She was awarded
Best Child Actress.
Then the movie went to
the Asia Pacific Film Festival
where she also won
Best Child Actress.
My first film was ASRAMA DARA,
after I was chosen
as runner-up-- sorry, champion--
in a talent contest.
It was a teen film.
I mean, a drama film
about teenagers from broken homes
living in a dormitory.
I was also close to Dicky.
Dicky was also my friend.
They met when playing with friends.
I was asked to
sit together with her.
Her grandma trusted me.
Dicky Suprapto was not only
Suzzanna's husband and producer,
he also managed Suzzanna's career.
Suzzanna's attachment to Dicky Suprapto
paved the way for her "hot films."
Mom and Dad were actors,
but they had a desire to produce movies
with their preferred themes.
In the 19505 and 19605
there were various upheavals.
There was an ideological war between
communists and non-communists.
So they protested against Hollywood films.
From 1964-1966,
no Hollywood films
were shown in Indonesia.
Which gave birth to
The New Order regime.
The popular phrase was,
"The Mattress, The Well, and The Kitchen."
According to The New Order,
women should be good mothers,
good wives, good children,
and good citizens.
Everything was about domestication.
After Suharto came to power
and was close to the United States,
Indonesia's economy
began to improve
with many investments
from the United States,
including Hollywood films.
Maybe the government thought,
Just let them have something
where they feel they can escape
from the reality that we've created."
Because of that,
censorship was softened.
To import three movies from abroad,
they had to make one movie themselves,
so many films were made.
Suzzanna, in the 19705,
started to get into
exploitation movies,
especially sex-themed movies.
She was called the "Queen of Bed."
Actually, "Queen of Sex."
Maybe the initial idea was
to make a serious drama
with BREATHING IN MUD.
Also, THE EARTH IS GETTING HOTTER, which
wasn't just a drama about prostitutes,
but also about emerging sexual lives.
- Shut up, you whore!
- You womanizer!
The film used a moral frame,
to justify the presence
of hot scenes.
The film captured
the urbanizing spirit of the time.
The title is very judgmental: the life
of a prostitute is considered that of
a woman who breathes in mud
and is very dirty.
There isn't much of an age
difference between me and my mother.
We stayed in one place
because our home
was also our office.
Our studio was elsewhere.
Where are the supplies which should
have been delivered yesterday?
Wasn't Grandpa coming here yesterday?
Throw your gun to me
or I will separate this kid's
head from his neck.
Interestingly, in the 19705,
as far as I know,
Suzzanna only
made one horror film:
This became the forerunner
of the iconic Queen of Horror" movies.
These horror things originated
from Dad's movie back then,
BIRTH IN THE GRAVE,
around 1971 or '72.
But actually it was not
a ghost movie.
It was about a pregnant woman
who was stricken by an acid attack.
Make it short and sweet,
soon you will feel nothing.
Then she lost consciousness
and was buried alive.
But before she was completely buried,
her baby was born.
The voice of the baby scared everyone.
In a cover story of
Aneka Ria magazine,
Suzzanna said that
she was picky about roles.
So she didn't act much.
But we suspected
that she had problems.
Domestic troubles
and personal problems.
It was really unbelievable.
My brother was also my best friend.
We couldn't believe it,
but we lived with it day by day.
And my mom was
extremely shocked at the time.
The reality that she lost her son,
it made her not...
She said she didn't want
to act in movies anymore.
She didn't want to.
It was 2006
when she started to get sick.
When Miss Suzzanna would come here,
when she was still alive,
my mom was taking care of it.
From 2009 until now, it's me.
Three times I dreamed of
Miss Suzzanna asking for help.
"Help, help, help."
Three times I answered, "Ma'am, why
are you asking for help?
Suzzanna didn't answer.
I swear on her grave it's true.
I dreamed of Suzzanna.
She threw me a scarf.
A long, blue scarf.
Then I came here.
There was a blue scarf
tied to Suzzanna's grave,
just like in my dream.
So she gave me a scarf.
Not directly in my sleep,
on the grave.
Tied to Miss Beatrix's and Mr. Ari's.
Also, once, on my
child's third birthday,
there was a clown
entertaining.
He saw her.
He saw Miss Suzzanna
under a frangipani tree
wearing a very beautiful bun.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, we have
no jasmine. Here are some roses."
We offered,
but she was gone already.
It gave me goosebumps.
I didn't see her, but the clown did.
My gosh, she was there
at my child's birthday.
Horror films in Indonesia, according to
Karl Heider, are always related to
mystical stories,
ghosts, and supernatural things.
Of course, this has
a connection to our culture.
Keeping a harmonious balance
is part of Javanese tradition.
With oneself,
the environment,
and also harmony
with something that is
supernatural or transcendent.
Moreover, we are also
a highly imaginative society.
That led to the emergence
of stories about spirits,
stories about revenants,
stories about ghosts,
and so on.
Indonesian films, especially
horror films, usually
take stories that
are rooted in our beliefs.
Indonesia is very intimate
with mythology and folklore.
We have 44 horror characters,
not including their derivatives.
My fear is reflected in
characters like Wewe Gombel,
who has the origin
story of a woman
who couldn't have a kid
when she was alive,
then was betrayed by her
husband and killed herself.
After she becomes a
ghost, she's obsessed with
taking kids that are not
loved by their parents.
Kuntilanaks always wear white dresses,
and their hair is long and messy.
There are some whose
faces are smashed.
Some say there are also red Kuntilanaks,
allegedly very powerful,
extremely angry maybe.
And they mostly have the same story.
The similarity is that they
are long-haired female ghosts
who have a high-pitched laugh
and fly in the trees.
Sundel Bolong and Kuntilanak are actually
women who die in childbirth
or while pregnant, and wander
around with unfinished business.
Not only when I grew up, but almost
all my life, I heard mystical stories.
If we compare ourselves with,
excuse me, foreigners from abroad,
in believing these
things, it is more difficult
for them to accept
such things as reality.
But since I was a kid,
I've gotten used to such things.
It's something that's
inseparable from our culture.
We always lived
side by side with it.
There were many at my home.
We called it "The Ghost's Nest."
We would be asleep, and suddenly a
stone would move or someone would walk by.
There were knocks or
scratching at my bedroom window.
There was also a creature,
this small, walking on the roof,
hopping, not walking, but this small.
Have you ever experienced
a ghostly apparition firsthand?
I can't tell you.
There are things that have happened
that I can talk about,
but there are things that, if I tell you,
I will be considered crazy.
Rapi Films, for me,
is not only a film company.
Every time I stepped into a cinema...
Back then, when we watched movies,
we didn't pay attention to
the production company.
But every time that logo popped up,
I felt like I was entering heaven.
The greatest
director in Indonesia:
Sisworo Gautama Putra.
How could you kill Pretl!
You're mean!
But I think Sisworo Gautama Putra
made good films.
They walked the line between
exploitation and art.
But these films couldn't be duplicated
or imitated by other filmmakers.
Floating.
If it's nailed down,
it's a beautiful person.
She's afraid of me.
Anyway, if she's around here...
The story is about Alisa,
played by Suzzanna...
A woman who's a former sex worker.
She gets married and...
Alisa is raped and she gets pregnant.
It's a heavy burden,
so she wants an abortion,
which is not safe, resulting in her death
and making her a Sundel Bolong.
Remember the main witness,
Mrs. Alisa Herdanto,
is a former prostitute.
Thus it is impossible for these
two defendants to commit rape.
The lady has sinned
against her husband.
If I fulfill the lady's request,
I'll have sinned against God.
Know, madam,
abortion is murder.
In SUNDELBOLONG,
there are some very disturbing things.
There is an abortion scene.
The abortion itself was not a problem;
I think I'm used to seeing blood.
But, when she is about to have the
abortion, she sees babies with disabilities
or hydrocephalus lying
around everywhere.
Oh, my God, this is so scary!
And the stigma is that if you have
an abortion and the abortion fails,
the child will be born disabled.
That was very disturbing.
Wow, wow...
No, no, no. I can't.
I have to skip that part.
SUNDELBOLONG is probably
most famous because of Suzzanna.
We're all very familiar
with the close-up of Suzzanna's face.
Her glare.
It's iconic, I think.
Her stare. It's so influential.
Even though I had a scary stare,
I was never angry.
I don't think Suzzanna's stare
is her biggest strength.
Yes, it's very powerful,
but her biggest strength
is her melancholic face.
Those two children
must die.
...she's still sad.
I was her make-up artist.
For SUNDELBOLONG, I put a black
make-up effect around her eyes.
Suzzanna asked me to make
a special arch for her eyebrow,
slightly broken
in the middle of it.
Her make-up became her trademark.
Black make-up around the eyes,
dark hair and a pale face.
I was perplexed at first about how to
make a hole in Sundel Bolong's back.
I bought several t-shirts and then
foam for the hole was taped on a t-shirt.
So the t-shirt was worn by Miss Suzie
and I measured the hole,
and then taped it with foam.
To remove the foam,
I used pliers, not my hands.
I made the hole look like meat
and put some white maggots in it.
And it was good.
What do you want?
The ZOO-stick satay scene
is a meme everywhere.
Soto.
And then the soto
in that movie!
I'm afraid, sir.
She looks scary, sir.
What? Like me?
And usually,
even though it's scary,
it always plays out with humor.
Nowadays, the jokes and the comedy
might seem dated.
But at that time, that was the kind
of comedy that Indonesians wanted.
That was the kind of horror
that Indonesians wanted.
What is that?
That's why
SUNDELBOLONG was so big.
Huh?
It captured the imagination
of the Indonesian audience.
Dead body!
The first of Suzzanna's movies
that I watched was SUNDELBOLONG.
So that might be why
it's the most special to me,
and the one that got
me hooked on Suzzanna.
You are a cursed human!
It then made me interested in
issues such as gender,
which made me later think,
"Oh, this is kind of representative,
when we talk about
gender equality, or
stigma, or those things."
I could use SUNDELBOLONG
for my analysis.
In the 19805,
she chose the horror genre.
Early on, I acted in
dramas, comedies, sad films.
But why was my own life full of drama?
Every day, I was dealing with sadness.
But then along came SUNDELBOLONG. I don't
know why, but my instinct said to take it.
So I took it, and from then, I
became addicted to horror films.
I will make you the
queen of black magic.
THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC and
SUNDELBOLONG were both made in 1981.
What interested me when
I started watching Suzzanna's movies
was the portrayal of women
as representing monsters.
In the name of Allah, the most
gracious and the most merciful.
Perhaps by conquering these supernatural
beings, who are depicted as women,
their existence as men
will be elevated.
The characters Suzzanna played
always begin as a woman who's wronged
and then takes revenge.
These films emphasize the question,
"Can women only fight after they die?"
She's a beautiful woman
with the body of a snake.
That was one of the
interesting consequences
of Suzzanna going
into horror movies.
And that became her niche.
So that's the interesting thing,
that in the 19805,
Suzzanna's position
modernized folklore and fantasy.
She wasn't afraid.
Usually women
are afraid of snakes, right?
Yes, the snakes were all alive.
Don't ask whether she was afraid or not.
She was.
She certainly was.
She was careful.
Try using fake snakes on the head
when the camera is close up.
It would look odd.
When the snake is real,
its tongue will come out of its mouth.
That's what makes it scary.
If you use fake snakes, it will be bland.
Maybe it would work in a long shot.
But Suzzanna wanted to use real snakes.
It wasn't the director's request.
We made a wire
loop around her head.
The wire was covered by hair
so that it wasn't visible.
The snakes moved all the way to her face.
I shuddered.
She would embody
the characters she played.
All the way to the rituals
and deep explorations of them,
since she played major characters.
Often people would say
she had supernatural powers.
They believed there was some kind
of entity entwined with her.
I choose to just believe this
without investigating further.
Your mouth will speak wise words fluently.
Maybe it's the fact that she
was so mysterious in real life
because we can never know
what really transpired, what she felt
or what she herself believed.
Suzzanna did rituals
such as fasting, pilgrimage.
When she was doing a movie
like NYI BLORONG,
she usually made a pilgrimage
to the Samudera Beach Hotel.
Some say it's polytheism,
some disagree.
But understand, it's not polytheism.
It's not devil worship.
We are not worshiping the devil.
She asked for permission there,
because she wanted to play the character.
And of course we did some fasting first.
We would then communicate with the
Queen of the South Sea.
We brought two coconuts.
One we gave to the
Queen of the South Sea
and the other
was drunk by Suzzanna.
And there would be prayers.
And then the mystical whisper
would communicate with her.
During the shooting,
you have to be like this."
"The taboos are this, this, and this."
There are also many rituals, not just one.
There are various kinds of rituals, right?
One ritual is that we are not allowed
to have sex during a shoot.
I did hear the rumors.
But I never witnessed
her doing anything like that.
My ancestors are from Java,
so I do meditate.
But I don't present offerings.
Offerings are these little gifts.
So I just pray and meditate,
because I think every
inch of soil is owned by God.
So every time
before we prepare to shoot,
we have to pray,
according to our own faith.
There were rumors out there about
Suzzanna eating flowers.
Like roses, magnolias and so on.
My mom liked to eat jasmine flowers.
Yes, I knew she liked it,
but she wasn't obsessed with it.
Yes, I still do. Jasmine
and wild roses, not fancy roses.
My grandmother taught me.
There were lots of jasmine flowers
below my window.
So I picked them and ate them.
I also brought them to school.
There were believers
in the mythology.
Maybe it's true there were
some people who experienced it.
It's not because I have
supernatural powers, like people say.
It's just a habit of mine.
But she still had that
aura of mystery.
Even if it was something
that was made up,
that she created for her image
as a horror actress.
In the 19805,
more than 60 percent of
Indonesian films were horror films.
There was massive growth,
especially with demonic horror
and horror stories with ghosts in them.
And when I'd watch
mainstream American horror films,
they looked very clean, very neat.
And so I didn't think they were scary.
It's just that I love
horror movies from that period.
Watching those films gave
me joy and made me forget that
I grew up in a tough environment
with a lot of problems.
My peers doing drugs, not going to school,
ending up in jail at 14 was a normal thing.
But with cinema, I found a whole new world.
Why are we afraid of horror movies?
Horror is entertainment.
Horror is entertainment,
which nourishes our hearts.
Why do I have to do it?
It's your duty.
There were so many incidents
of the upper middle class,
the Indonesian elite class...
Give her back!
Walking free from their criminal acts.
But then Suzzanna
avenges them in her movies.
I killed all of them.
You're the only one left, Burhan.
It was a catharsis.
Usually corrupt characters,
criminals from the bourgeoisie,
meet the fate of being killed
by the avenging ghost
played by Suzzanna.
When a new Suzzanna
movie came out in 1980,
it could be booked
immediately by touring cinemas.
That's why she has staying power.
It's her niche with the lower class.
The audiences range from children
to teenagers, adults, and even the elderly.
You know, there are village singers,
people selling bakpao,
200 skewers of satay at roadside stalls.
It was an all-night event,
a live celebration, very celebratory,
because it's not like in a movie
theater where you sit quietly.
When we watch a movie
at a theater, it's different.
In a theater, we can't cheer.
We can't yell,
"Hooray, hooray!" and stuff.
Suzzanna's films, at the beginning
when they're screened, all would be normal.
But as soon as the scares hit,
the demon comes out...
People get really scared,
screaming and stuff, you know.
The government has been regulating
layar tan cap since the 1970s.
Layar tan cap must be 5 kilometers
from the nearest cinema.
Then it has to be censored again.
It has to be an Indonesian movie.
The goal is the establishment
of a "cultural fence."
It was believed that the lower
classes in the countryside
or outside of the city could not absorb
the negative impacts of globalization.
But this was paradoxical,
because at the same time,
layar tan cap became the outlet for
the screening of exploitation films.
Indeed, when we still had
the Department of Information,
films were a bit difficult to get.
Thank God, I got my collection from
friends in the film community.
Praise the Lord, there are around
450 titles from various genres.
There are Western, Indian, domestic,
Mandarin, and Thai movies.
This is destiny.
Humans aren't supposed to refuse it.
Mother!
He is your own flesh and blood.
- Murderer!
- Forgive me!
Forgive me!
A terrible child! Get lost!
When I was in junior high,
my mother took me to see SUNDELBOLONG.
As soon as I saw her,
"Oh my God, this woman is so beautiful!
Why can't she be my wife?"
That's what I said to myself.
Maybe at that time, an angel
passed by and heard my wish.
It's a miracle, really.
It began when I came
home from school one day
and someone
followed me to my home.
He said I'd been summoned
by a director from Jakarta.
At first, I told him
he must be at the wrong address.
I wasn't in the movies, I was a student.
I said, "I can't act! I'm not an actor!
"It's easy, I'll teach you. The important
thing is you want to be in a movie."
He was also a Taekwondo instructor at
Santa Maria Elementary School.
We'll do some tests.
We'll bring you to Jakarta.
If you pass the various tests,
then I will hire you
to be in the movie."
Then, for the final test,
I was going to meet
the number one film star
in Indonesia: Suzzanna.
Who are you?
She did introduce me to him.
As time went by,
Mom was getting
closer to Clift as an actor.
She started to spend
her days joyfully again.
Well, it was like
being with a mother.
You know, she was
23 years older than me.
And Suzzanna was a seasoned artist.
A seasoned artist who was highly respected,
while I was nothing, a nobody.
I didn't interfere
and can't say...
I couldn't tell you
how she felt.
However, I saw happiness.
That was all.
Until, one day, it was the
last scene on the last day, the last shot.
A kissing scene.
On that last day, during the
kissing scene, we had chemistry.
I was scared they'd scold me, thinking
I took advantage, kissing Suzzanna.
So I just kept quiet.
Then Suzzanna asked, "How was it?"
Uh, yeah..." I was shy.
Afraid to answer.
She said, "Well, I'm happy.
It gave me shivers."
Suzzanna said that.
"So I'm not the only one?"
"No," she said.
Okay then, that's all.
I stopped right there.
The Almighty has fated us
to meet each other.
For three nights,
I couldn't sleep.
I kept thinking
about that kissing scene.
I mean, I hadn't gone on a
date ever, you know.
I was still in high school.
I was 17 years old.
Finally, after three days, I found
the courage to try calling Suzzanna.
One thing, in that movie,
(ft Sangra dared to be nude.
It became a talking point, a controversy.
Of course, people were
asking questions all over,
since a lot of anonymous
letters came in, lots of them.
People said I was going after
her wealth, all kinds of things.
Suzzanna also doubted me.
I'm ready to marry you.
No way. How can a mother marry her child?
You're not my mother.
I'm the one who wants to get married,
not someone else.
And I'm really sincere.
I love you, truly, the way you are.
I have no other intention.
Let's not overthink it, let's prove it.
We met because of God's will.
I will make him my husband.
In my opinion,
it really illustrated her position,
that she had power
and authority in the film industry.
Meanwhile, I can never seem
to feel fulfilled or satisfied.
The baby you are
carrying deserves a life, too.
You are an evil woman with a rotten heart.
Here, take that.
Gobble that up!
Meanwhile, Rapi Films
developed the stories of
THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC and NYI BLORONG
with their own new star, Joice Erna.
But after I watched it, there was no
NYI BLORONG aura in Joice Erna.
The aura was in Suzzanna,
from her eyes to everything else.
I once asked her, "How do you feel
about this title,
'The Queen of Horror'?"
She said, "I'm proud. I'm happy.
What I've done hasn't been in vain.
It means that what I've
strived for has been successful.
When I act in horror movies and
scare lots of people, why do I feel good?
I feel happy to have so
many fans. Even though
I scared them, they still
ask for pictures with me.
Many of the young ones
call me, "Aunt Suzzanna.
Some say that after
Sisworo passed away in 1993,
Suzzanna did not want to
make movies with anyone else.
Suzzanna's mother used to live
in Holland as a Dutch citizen.
When she was old, Suzzanna was afraid
that no one would take care of her mother.
So she came to Indonesia
and stayed here at our home.
Out of 120 film companies in Indonesia,
if I'm not mistaken, only 4 remained.
116 companies went out of business.
The golden age of soap operas.
Princess Jasmine, who was torn apart,
has come back.
My life has no meaning anymore.
What kind of illness?"
I asked.
That's what friends were wondering.
Suzzanna was sick with diabetes.
No, I didn't know
anything right away.
I also seldom met with Clift.
Clift wouldn't open the door.
We rarely socialized.
From head to toe,
I brought everything Suzzanna needed.
I lived in Jakarta at the time.
Mom had moved to Magelang.
Then I relocated in 2005,
actually because Mom asked me to.
My dad didn't agree with this.
He considered Magelang
to be a city for retirement.
He said, "You're still young.
Move there later when you're retired."
But Mom said,
"Do it now. I'm lonely."
KM doesn't work;
her husband doesn't work.
No income. No money.
Suzzanna supplies
$1000 every month.
Kiki Maria and Clift Sangra
had been feuding for a long time.
I lent them my house for them to live in.
There were builders in the house.
I wanted to see what the workers
were doing, what they were making.
I went there and I found two workers there.
Suddenly, one of them said to me,
"Sir, how come you
want to have an old wife?
You're handsome, rich,
lots of money, an artist.
If you want to find
a young one, it's easy."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, I can help you.
You can get a young wife,
a beautiful one."
"What does that mean?"
"To get rid of Miss Suzzanna."
"What do you mean?"
"To kill her, sir."
Suzzanna was dealing
with a family conflict.
There was a fight
involving a gun.
The reporters asked a lot of questions,
most of which were answered by Suzzanna.
There was an indication
that Kiki hated Clift
because (fit was going
to get her inheritance.
Let's not tam about Kim.
KM is my daughter.
I know her.
However mean she got with me,
she doesn't want to know me...
I know my daughter.
But Abri...
Since the beginning,
I have never liked him.
Suzzanna said
she missed her grandchild.
"I want to see my grandchild.
I miss him," she said.
We knock on the door,
nobody answered.
Finally, Suzzanna said,
"Try calling." So I called.
Km, your mother is
at the door of the house.
They immediately hung up.
Well, the door to the house opened.
The gate was opened.
KM, her daughter, points at me.
"You're not coming in!"
Suzzanna went inside.
Suddenly her son-in-law
was screaming,
"Listen, Mom,
you have to trust Kiki!
(Ft wants to km you, Mom!
Finally, the door opened
and I was told to come in.
"What's going on?
You want to kill Mother?!"
"Not me!" I said.
"I swear in the name of Jesus.
Call the handyman.
We'll discuss it and go to court
if we need to. Call the police."
Clift was told to leave the house again.
When (fit was
stepping out of the room,
Abri immediately charged at him,
wanting to fight,
attacking his stomach.
His hands were punching
and struck Clift a couple of times.
Then Kiki grabbed a helmet,
and hit him on the side
of the head a lot of times.
I got a wound here,
torn from nose to eye.
It tore open from the
beating of that helmet.
Blood was everywhere.
Kim ran in front of me
and climbed onto a table and took
something from the top of the cupboard.
When she made this movement,
it was sharp, like a knife.
When I saw the knife, my heart sank.
She gave it to Abri.
I remembered I carried a weapon.
I'll give a warning shot.
It all stopped for a moment.
Abri stopped punching.
But then, when he saw the pistol,
he immediate; started attacking
(lift again with his knife!
Once blood spurted from Clift,
I couldn't talk anymore.
I couldn't scream.
My mouth felt dry.
My heart felt flighty.
I shot him in the leg.
But he didn't react!
I thought, "Is this person
invulnerable or what?"
I aimed again. I wanted to shoot him in
the other leg, the right leg,
but he grabbed the gun
and it went off,
hitting him in the stomach.
To my knowledge, Kiki and Abri
also made a police report.
The information was inconsistent.
From what I gathered,
Gift shot someone.
So, when this news was published,
it exploded.
I think the whole country was stirred up.
For a while, if there was an
unexpected call, if there was any problem,
if their family was falling apart,
Clift was always blamed.
So I'm not surprised.
I once asked, "Name just one of
Clift's mistakes. Prove one of his crimes.
Not just hearsay, but from ten
witnesses, five witnesses.
Prove one of Clift's
infractions. One witness.
Prove it so that I know.
Before I die, I want to know.
The conflict between
Abfi Arse and (lift Sangra
led Suzzanna's family to move
Arie's skeleton from a cemetery in Bogor.
The relocation of Arie's remains
shocked the entire family.
Meanwhile, Suzzanna has
recently isolated herself.
There is news that
Suzzanna is currently in a coma.
She was just released after being
hospitalized for 14 days
and in a coma for two days.
Previously, as you know, she was
once in a coma for four days
and hospitalized for one month.
Well, that just happened again.
Suzi's condition is unpredictable.
More dramatically, viewers,
Suzzanna intends
to be buried in the
same grave as Arie.
Like a scene from a horror film,
Suzzanna's life becomes increasingly tense.
Is this the end of the horror story
of Suzzanna's life?
GHOST AMBULANCE
I have to do things that
make me happy.
I knew from her doctor that
she was actually seriously ill at the time.
So, she wasn't fit to film,
but she made a cameo appearance.
They would just call me,
"Suzzanna, Suzzanna!"
When I stare at the mirror,
I sometimes wonder,
"I get told I'm beautiful
and look young. Is it really so?"
"How old are you?"
"65 years and 3 months."
It's because of Clift. His love and
affection for me keeps me young.
In my first film,
Suzzanna was my mother.
In Suzzanna's last film,
Suzzanna played my mother.
It matched.
Now Clift and I are
repeating the film SANGKURIANG
where I was the mother
and Clift was my son.
Your aspiration to love me
has been fulfilled.
For me, this is an incredible thing.
It's hard to say what I'm feeling.
I'm more than happy; I'm
more touched. There's sadness.
It's not sadness where I feel down,
but a sadness that makes me think,
"How can I go
through all this?"
I haven't got my cemetery plot just yet.
I have tasks I need to complete first.
Right after GHOST AMBULANCE,
she said,
"I think my time is about to come.
I miss Mommy, I miss Daddy,
I miss Arie."
She asked me to hold her hand.
After she said it, she suddenly
inhaled and exhaled.
I thought she was tired. But again, she
took a deep breath and let it out.
Predictably, suspicions
fell on Clift Sangra.
It was inevitable, because they
were the only ones there.
I went to her house,
but the door was locked.
They had already gone to the cemetery.
I quickly went to the cemetery.
I wanted to attend the
Catholic Rite of Committal.
By the time I arrived at the
cemetery, the funeral was over.
Why should it be such
a hidden event?
They said it was
because her will requested it.
She might want to avoid other people,
but to avoid her own family, too?
It raised a few questions, of course,
with the very simple funeral.
But, yeah, we never knew
what really happened.
When she was dying, Suzzanna
didn't want it revealed to the public.
So, it was Suzzanna's request.
She didn't want to be exposed,
didn't want to be seen as a
pale body in the coffin.
She wanted the public to remember
the beautiful Suzzanna.
The news said that her
funeral was hidden by me.
I don't care what people say.
I don't have anything to say back to them.
They said I wanted to
kill Suzzanna. It's okay.
I have nothing to lose
from their words.
There's a letter from
the Magelang police and
the doctor, stating her
death was due to illness.
People's curiosity went beyond speculation.
There was an outcry for an autopsy,
but I didn't let it happen.
I didn't do it,
because she was already dead.
We used to sleep in the same room,
but I snored when I slept.
When Suzzanna got sick,
she'd become annoyed by this.
She said, "Darling, will you please
move to another room? I can't sleep.
So I moved rooms. "Okay, I'll move,
but what if you need anything?"
"If I need anything,
I'll just knock, knock on the wall."
Knock, knock, knock.
That was her call to me.
So, once she was gone, she had died,
and she had been buried here,
the wall in my room would still get
the knock, knock, knock.
The knocks on the wall went
on for about two years.
During that period, she would appear,
in front of the bedroom, in the TV room.
So, even after she died,
she wasn't gone immediately.
No, she lingered in our home.
There are even remakes,
reboots, rebirths.
SUZZAN NA:
BURIED ALIVE
They said the ghost of Mrs. Suzzanna.
I really saw Suzzanna.
She has become a...
Sundel bolong'.!
They wouldn't change the look
of the person playing Suzzanna.
Always with the mole in the same place.
They don't want to stray from that,
because of how iconic Suzzanna is.
And not only because of her legacy,
the movies that she made,
but because she represents not only
the past but also the future.
Hope.
The hope that Indonesian films can
connect to their audience.
When we talk about the
world of horror movies,
there are names identified with
horror, like:
But there is another name that I think
surpasses every one of them.
And her name is...
Suzzanna.
Dominating horror films
produced in the 19805 and '905.
Miss Suzzanna
can never be replaced.
She could play a role
with just her gaze.
It was so powerful.
Wow.
Her piercing stare
and cold expression
made the late Suzzanna
such a mysterious figure.
She was fully into the world
of traditional rural mysticism.
Suzzanna was not
only a horror actress,
but also a symbol
of our audience's devotion
to Indonesian films.
This was Suzzanna's room.
These were her clothes,
the ones that she wore
in her final films.
These were a source
of pride for Suzzanna.
And this was Suzzanna's favorite:
water with jasmine in it.
This is the water she usually drank
to nourish her soul.
Smells good.
She drank the water,
and she ate the jasmine.
Like chewing candy or peanuts.
The taste was sweet.
It was her favorite.
Suzzanna died here.
When we are "called home,"
we are prepared.
We are not afraid.
Our shaman is dead.
I'm Murni...
Queen of black magic.
Everyone still talks about her
because she represents
many good things
about Indonesian film.
If I want to scare you, it must
come from here, from within.
It's the same as declaring
love for someone in a movie.
Say it with your heart.
When I worked with Suzzanna,
her movies had a huge audience.
Your mother right here
is the most powerful in this world.
A lot of people watched.
I don't know how many.
Millions of people.
Suzzanna bathed here.
Meditated here, bathed here.
The prayers,
the wishes.
When we were done,
we'd open our mouths.
Three times.
Three drops on our tongues.
It meant our wishes
would come true.
But if we missed one drop,
we'd have to repeat the process
for at least 35 more days.
Her name was
Suzanna Martha Frederika van Osch.
It sounds Dutch.
But she's actually mixed race.
When Indonesia was
colonized by the Dutch,
there was assimilation.
Suzzanna's father was a soldier
in the Dutch army.
He was on duty in
Subang, West Java,
when he was shot by the Japanese.
Dead.
Her mother was six
months pregnant at the time.
Heard the news...
Shocked.
She started bleeding
and was admitted
to the hospital.
Suzzanna was born
in Bogor.
October 13, 1942.
Her birth was premature.
For six months,
she had a yellow body
and stayed in an incubator.
Her mother returned to Holland.
From childhood,
she was cared for by her grandmother.
She was just called "Susi."
I loved to pick flowers with her.
"Let's pick some flowers."
If there was a car passing,
we both got down on the ground.
Her father was Dutch,
but her grandma was Javanese.
So she got along fine.
We went to different schools.
She was in Pendowo,
at a Catholic school.
Suzzanna was quickly popular
because she was lively.
During recess
she'd suddenly do
the splits!
With her legs, you know.
Yes, indeed.
She loved to tell her friends,
"I'm going to be a famous movie star."
In the second year,
she suddenly disappeared.
Later, I heard she was
in Jakarta, acting in movies.
There was a search for
new, young actresses
and celebrity faces.
Then she was cast in
ASRAMA DARA.
That's where Suzzanna first got
recognition as an actress.
And it was in that environment
that she learned a lot,
maybe because she
was tutored by Usmar Ismail.
The one I like the most is
Mom's movie ASRAMA DARA.
How old are you?
Eighteen!
Me, I'm nineteen,
minus...
Minus a little bit.
It best represented Mom.
That was what her daily life looked like.
Since she was a little girl, the whole
family knew what she wanted to be.
"I want to be a movie star."
But it turned out to be true.
Look at my mom,
she has become a respected woman.
Yes, all of her
friends watched it.
Of course,
she was so happy.
"Am I good?"
"You're good, Suz."
In 1960, the second
Indonesian Film Festival took place.
She was awarded
Best Child Actress.
Then the movie went to
the Asia Pacific Film Festival
where she also won
Best Child Actress.
My first film was ASRAMA DARA,
after I was chosen
as runner-up-- sorry, champion--
in a talent contest.
It was a teen film.
I mean, a drama film
about teenagers from broken homes
living in a dormitory.
I was also close to Dicky.
Dicky was also my friend.
They met when playing with friends.
I was asked to
sit together with her.
Her grandma trusted me.
Dicky Suprapto was not only
Suzzanna's husband and producer,
he also managed Suzzanna's career.
Suzzanna's attachment to Dicky Suprapto
paved the way for her "hot films."
Mom and Dad were actors,
but they had a desire to produce movies
with their preferred themes.
In the 19505 and 19605
there were various upheavals.
There was an ideological war between
communists and non-communists.
So they protested against Hollywood films.
From 1964-1966,
no Hollywood films
were shown in Indonesia.
Which gave birth to
The New Order regime.
The popular phrase was,
"The Mattress, The Well, and The Kitchen."
According to The New Order,
women should be good mothers,
good wives, good children,
and good citizens.
Everything was about domestication.
After Suharto came to power
and was close to the United States,
Indonesia's economy
began to improve
with many investments
from the United States,
including Hollywood films.
Maybe the government thought,
Just let them have something
where they feel they can escape
from the reality that we've created."
Because of that,
censorship was softened.
To import three movies from abroad,
they had to make one movie themselves,
so many films were made.
Suzzanna, in the 19705,
started to get into
exploitation movies,
especially sex-themed movies.
She was called the "Queen of Bed."
Actually, "Queen of Sex."
Maybe the initial idea was
to make a serious drama
with BREATHING IN MUD.
Also, THE EARTH IS GETTING HOTTER, which
wasn't just a drama about prostitutes,
but also about emerging sexual lives.
- Shut up, you whore!
- You womanizer!
The film used a moral frame,
to justify the presence
of hot scenes.
The film captured
the urbanizing spirit of the time.
The title is very judgmental: the life
of a prostitute is considered that of
a woman who breathes in mud
and is very dirty.
There isn't much of an age
difference between me and my mother.
We stayed in one place
because our home
was also our office.
Our studio was elsewhere.
Where are the supplies which should
have been delivered yesterday?
Wasn't Grandpa coming here yesterday?
Throw your gun to me
or I will separate this kid's
head from his neck.
Interestingly, in the 19705,
as far as I know,
Suzzanna only
made one horror film:
This became the forerunner
of the iconic Queen of Horror" movies.
These horror things originated
from Dad's movie back then,
BIRTH IN THE GRAVE,
around 1971 or '72.
But actually it was not
a ghost movie.
It was about a pregnant woman
who was stricken by an acid attack.
Make it short and sweet,
soon you will feel nothing.
Then she lost consciousness
and was buried alive.
But before she was completely buried,
her baby was born.
The voice of the baby scared everyone.
In a cover story of
Aneka Ria magazine,
Suzzanna said that
she was picky about roles.
So she didn't act much.
But we suspected
that she had problems.
Domestic troubles
and personal problems.
It was really unbelievable.
My brother was also my best friend.
We couldn't believe it,
but we lived with it day by day.
And my mom was
extremely shocked at the time.
The reality that she lost her son,
it made her not...
She said she didn't want
to act in movies anymore.
She didn't want to.
It was 2006
when she started to get sick.
When Miss Suzzanna would come here,
when she was still alive,
my mom was taking care of it.
From 2009 until now, it's me.
Three times I dreamed of
Miss Suzzanna asking for help.
"Help, help, help."
Three times I answered, "Ma'am, why
are you asking for help?
Suzzanna didn't answer.
I swear on her grave it's true.
I dreamed of Suzzanna.
She threw me a scarf.
A long, blue scarf.
Then I came here.
There was a blue scarf
tied to Suzzanna's grave,
just like in my dream.
So she gave me a scarf.
Not directly in my sleep,
on the grave.
Tied to Miss Beatrix's and Mr. Ari's.
Also, once, on my
child's third birthday,
there was a clown
entertaining.
He saw her.
He saw Miss Suzzanna
under a frangipani tree
wearing a very beautiful bun.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, we have
no jasmine. Here are some roses."
We offered,
but she was gone already.
It gave me goosebumps.
I didn't see her, but the clown did.
My gosh, she was there
at my child's birthday.
Horror films in Indonesia, according to
Karl Heider, are always related to
mystical stories,
ghosts, and supernatural things.
Of course, this has
a connection to our culture.
Keeping a harmonious balance
is part of Javanese tradition.
With oneself,
the environment,
and also harmony
with something that is
supernatural or transcendent.
Moreover, we are also
a highly imaginative society.
That led to the emergence
of stories about spirits,
stories about revenants,
stories about ghosts,
and so on.
Indonesian films, especially
horror films, usually
take stories that
are rooted in our beliefs.
Indonesia is very intimate
with mythology and folklore.
We have 44 horror characters,
not including their derivatives.
My fear is reflected in
characters like Wewe Gombel,
who has the origin
story of a woman
who couldn't have a kid
when she was alive,
then was betrayed by her
husband and killed herself.
After she becomes a
ghost, she's obsessed with
taking kids that are not
loved by their parents.
Kuntilanaks always wear white dresses,
and their hair is long and messy.
There are some whose
faces are smashed.
Some say there are also red Kuntilanaks,
allegedly very powerful,
extremely angry maybe.
And they mostly have the same story.
The similarity is that they
are long-haired female ghosts
who have a high-pitched laugh
and fly in the trees.
Sundel Bolong and Kuntilanak are actually
women who die in childbirth
or while pregnant, and wander
around with unfinished business.
Not only when I grew up, but almost
all my life, I heard mystical stories.
If we compare ourselves with,
excuse me, foreigners from abroad,
in believing these
things, it is more difficult
for them to accept
such things as reality.
But since I was a kid,
I've gotten used to such things.
It's something that's
inseparable from our culture.
We always lived
side by side with it.
There were many at my home.
We called it "The Ghost's Nest."
We would be asleep, and suddenly a
stone would move or someone would walk by.
There were knocks or
scratching at my bedroom window.
There was also a creature,
this small, walking on the roof,
hopping, not walking, but this small.
Have you ever experienced
a ghostly apparition firsthand?
I can't tell you.
There are things that have happened
that I can talk about,
but there are things that, if I tell you,
I will be considered crazy.
Rapi Films, for me,
is not only a film company.
Every time I stepped into a cinema...
Back then, when we watched movies,
we didn't pay attention to
the production company.
But every time that logo popped up,
I felt like I was entering heaven.
The greatest
director in Indonesia:
Sisworo Gautama Putra.
How could you kill Pretl!
You're mean!
But I think Sisworo Gautama Putra
made good films.
They walked the line between
exploitation and art.
But these films couldn't be duplicated
or imitated by other filmmakers.
Floating.
If it's nailed down,
it's a beautiful person.
She's afraid of me.
Anyway, if she's around here...
The story is about Alisa,
played by Suzzanna...
A woman who's a former sex worker.
She gets married and...
Alisa is raped and she gets pregnant.
It's a heavy burden,
so she wants an abortion,
which is not safe, resulting in her death
and making her a Sundel Bolong.
Remember the main witness,
Mrs. Alisa Herdanto,
is a former prostitute.
Thus it is impossible for these
two defendants to commit rape.
The lady has sinned
against her husband.
If I fulfill the lady's request,
I'll have sinned against God.
Know, madam,
abortion is murder.
In SUNDELBOLONG,
there are some very disturbing things.
There is an abortion scene.
The abortion itself was not a problem;
I think I'm used to seeing blood.
But, when she is about to have the
abortion, she sees babies with disabilities
or hydrocephalus lying
around everywhere.
Oh, my God, this is so scary!
And the stigma is that if you have
an abortion and the abortion fails,
the child will be born disabled.
That was very disturbing.
Wow, wow...
No, no, no. I can't.
I have to skip that part.
SUNDELBOLONG is probably
most famous because of Suzzanna.
We're all very familiar
with the close-up of Suzzanna's face.
Her glare.
It's iconic, I think.
Her stare. It's so influential.
Even though I had a scary stare,
I was never angry.
I don't think Suzzanna's stare
is her biggest strength.
Yes, it's very powerful,
but her biggest strength
is her melancholic face.
Those two children
must die.
...she's still sad.
I was her make-up artist.
For SUNDELBOLONG, I put a black
make-up effect around her eyes.
Suzzanna asked me to make
a special arch for her eyebrow,
slightly broken
in the middle of it.
Her make-up became her trademark.
Black make-up around the eyes,
dark hair and a pale face.
I was perplexed at first about how to
make a hole in Sundel Bolong's back.
I bought several t-shirts and then
foam for the hole was taped on a t-shirt.
So the t-shirt was worn by Miss Suzie
and I measured the hole,
and then taped it with foam.
To remove the foam,
I used pliers, not my hands.
I made the hole look like meat
and put some white maggots in it.
And it was good.
What do you want?
The ZOO-stick satay scene
is a meme everywhere.
Soto.
And then the soto
in that movie!
I'm afraid, sir.
She looks scary, sir.
What? Like me?
And usually,
even though it's scary,
it always plays out with humor.
Nowadays, the jokes and the comedy
might seem dated.
But at that time, that was the kind
of comedy that Indonesians wanted.
That was the kind of horror
that Indonesians wanted.
What is that?
That's why
SUNDELBOLONG was so big.
Huh?
It captured the imagination
of the Indonesian audience.
Dead body!
The first of Suzzanna's movies
that I watched was SUNDELBOLONG.
So that might be why
it's the most special to me,
and the one that got
me hooked on Suzzanna.
You are a cursed human!
It then made me interested in
issues such as gender,
which made me later think,
"Oh, this is kind of representative,
when we talk about
gender equality, or
stigma, or those things."
I could use SUNDELBOLONG
for my analysis.
In the 19805,
she chose the horror genre.
Early on, I acted in
dramas, comedies, sad films.
But why was my own life full of drama?
Every day, I was dealing with sadness.
But then along came SUNDELBOLONG. I don't
know why, but my instinct said to take it.
So I took it, and from then, I
became addicted to horror films.
I will make you the
queen of black magic.
THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC and
SUNDELBOLONG were both made in 1981.
What interested me when
I started watching Suzzanna's movies
was the portrayal of women
as representing monsters.
In the name of Allah, the most
gracious and the most merciful.
Perhaps by conquering these supernatural
beings, who are depicted as women,
their existence as men
will be elevated.
The characters Suzzanna played
always begin as a woman who's wronged
and then takes revenge.
These films emphasize the question,
"Can women only fight after they die?"
She's a beautiful woman
with the body of a snake.
That was one of the
interesting consequences
of Suzzanna going
into horror movies.
And that became her niche.
So that's the interesting thing,
that in the 19805,
Suzzanna's position
modernized folklore and fantasy.
She wasn't afraid.
Usually women
are afraid of snakes, right?
Yes, the snakes were all alive.
Don't ask whether she was afraid or not.
She was.
She certainly was.
She was careful.
Try using fake snakes on the head
when the camera is close up.
It would look odd.
When the snake is real,
its tongue will come out of its mouth.
That's what makes it scary.
If you use fake snakes, it will be bland.
Maybe it would work in a long shot.
But Suzzanna wanted to use real snakes.
It wasn't the director's request.
We made a wire
loop around her head.
The wire was covered by hair
so that it wasn't visible.
The snakes moved all the way to her face.
I shuddered.
She would embody
the characters she played.
All the way to the rituals
and deep explorations of them,
since she played major characters.
Often people would say
she had supernatural powers.
They believed there was some kind
of entity entwined with her.
I choose to just believe this
without investigating further.
Your mouth will speak wise words fluently.
Maybe it's the fact that she
was so mysterious in real life
because we can never know
what really transpired, what she felt
or what she herself believed.
Suzzanna did rituals
such as fasting, pilgrimage.
When she was doing a movie
like NYI BLORONG,
she usually made a pilgrimage
to the Samudera Beach Hotel.
Some say it's polytheism,
some disagree.
But understand, it's not polytheism.
It's not devil worship.
We are not worshiping the devil.
She asked for permission there,
because she wanted to play the character.
And of course we did some fasting first.
We would then communicate with the
Queen of the South Sea.
We brought two coconuts.
One we gave to the
Queen of the South Sea
and the other
was drunk by Suzzanna.
And there would be prayers.
And then the mystical whisper
would communicate with her.
During the shooting,
you have to be like this."
"The taboos are this, this, and this."
There are also many rituals, not just one.
There are various kinds of rituals, right?
One ritual is that we are not allowed
to have sex during a shoot.
I did hear the rumors.
But I never witnessed
her doing anything like that.
My ancestors are from Java,
so I do meditate.
But I don't present offerings.
Offerings are these little gifts.
So I just pray and meditate,
because I think every
inch of soil is owned by God.
So every time
before we prepare to shoot,
we have to pray,
according to our own faith.
There were rumors out there about
Suzzanna eating flowers.
Like roses, magnolias and so on.
My mom liked to eat jasmine flowers.
Yes, I knew she liked it,
but she wasn't obsessed with it.
Yes, I still do. Jasmine
and wild roses, not fancy roses.
My grandmother taught me.
There were lots of jasmine flowers
below my window.
So I picked them and ate them.
I also brought them to school.
There were believers
in the mythology.
Maybe it's true there were
some people who experienced it.
It's not because I have
supernatural powers, like people say.
It's just a habit of mine.
But she still had that
aura of mystery.
Even if it was something
that was made up,
that she created for her image
as a horror actress.
In the 19805,
more than 60 percent of
Indonesian films were horror films.
There was massive growth,
especially with demonic horror
and horror stories with ghosts in them.
And when I'd watch
mainstream American horror films,
they looked very clean, very neat.
And so I didn't think they were scary.
It's just that I love
horror movies from that period.
Watching those films gave
me joy and made me forget that
I grew up in a tough environment
with a lot of problems.
My peers doing drugs, not going to school,
ending up in jail at 14 was a normal thing.
But with cinema, I found a whole new world.
Why are we afraid of horror movies?
Horror is entertainment.
Horror is entertainment,
which nourishes our hearts.
Why do I have to do it?
It's your duty.
There were so many incidents
of the upper middle class,
the Indonesian elite class...
Give her back!
Walking free from their criminal acts.
But then Suzzanna
avenges them in her movies.
I killed all of them.
You're the only one left, Burhan.
It was a catharsis.
Usually corrupt characters,
criminals from the bourgeoisie,
meet the fate of being killed
by the avenging ghost
played by Suzzanna.
When a new Suzzanna
movie came out in 1980,
it could be booked
immediately by touring cinemas.
That's why she has staying power.
It's her niche with the lower class.
The audiences range from children
to teenagers, adults, and even the elderly.
You know, there are village singers,
people selling bakpao,
200 skewers of satay at roadside stalls.
It was an all-night event,
a live celebration, very celebratory,
because it's not like in a movie
theater where you sit quietly.
When we watch a movie
at a theater, it's different.
In a theater, we can't cheer.
We can't yell,
"Hooray, hooray!" and stuff.
Suzzanna's films, at the beginning
when they're screened, all would be normal.
But as soon as the scares hit,
the demon comes out...
People get really scared,
screaming and stuff, you know.
The government has been regulating
layar tan cap since the 1970s.
Layar tan cap must be 5 kilometers
from the nearest cinema.
Then it has to be censored again.
It has to be an Indonesian movie.
The goal is the establishment
of a "cultural fence."
It was believed that the lower
classes in the countryside
or outside of the city could not absorb
the negative impacts of globalization.
But this was paradoxical,
because at the same time,
layar tan cap became the outlet for
the screening of exploitation films.
Indeed, when we still had
the Department of Information,
films were a bit difficult to get.
Thank God, I got my collection from
friends in the film community.
Praise the Lord, there are around
450 titles from various genres.
There are Western, Indian, domestic,
Mandarin, and Thai movies.
This is destiny.
Humans aren't supposed to refuse it.
Mother!
He is your own flesh and blood.
- Murderer!
- Forgive me!
Forgive me!
A terrible child! Get lost!
When I was in junior high,
my mother took me to see SUNDELBOLONG.
As soon as I saw her,
"Oh my God, this woman is so beautiful!
Why can't she be my wife?"
That's what I said to myself.
Maybe at that time, an angel
passed by and heard my wish.
It's a miracle, really.
It began when I came
home from school one day
and someone
followed me to my home.
He said I'd been summoned
by a director from Jakarta.
At first, I told him
he must be at the wrong address.
I wasn't in the movies, I was a student.
I said, "I can't act! I'm not an actor!
"It's easy, I'll teach you. The important
thing is you want to be in a movie."
He was also a Taekwondo instructor at
Santa Maria Elementary School.
We'll do some tests.
We'll bring you to Jakarta.
If you pass the various tests,
then I will hire you
to be in the movie."
Then, for the final test,
I was going to meet
the number one film star
in Indonesia: Suzzanna.
Who are you?
She did introduce me to him.
As time went by,
Mom was getting
closer to Clift as an actor.
She started to spend
her days joyfully again.
Well, it was like
being with a mother.
You know, she was
23 years older than me.
And Suzzanna was a seasoned artist.
A seasoned artist who was highly respected,
while I was nothing, a nobody.
I didn't interfere
and can't say...
I couldn't tell you
how she felt.
However, I saw happiness.
That was all.
Until, one day, it was the
last scene on the last day, the last shot.
A kissing scene.
On that last day, during the
kissing scene, we had chemistry.
I was scared they'd scold me, thinking
I took advantage, kissing Suzzanna.
So I just kept quiet.
Then Suzzanna asked, "How was it?"
Uh, yeah..." I was shy.
Afraid to answer.
She said, "Well, I'm happy.
It gave me shivers."
Suzzanna said that.
"So I'm not the only one?"
"No," she said.
Okay then, that's all.
I stopped right there.
The Almighty has fated us
to meet each other.
For three nights,
I couldn't sleep.
I kept thinking
about that kissing scene.
I mean, I hadn't gone on a
date ever, you know.
I was still in high school.
I was 17 years old.
Finally, after three days, I found
the courage to try calling Suzzanna.
One thing, in that movie,
(ft Sangra dared to be nude.
It became a talking point, a controversy.
Of course, people were
asking questions all over,
since a lot of anonymous
letters came in, lots of them.
People said I was going after
her wealth, all kinds of things.
Suzzanna also doubted me.
I'm ready to marry you.
No way. How can a mother marry her child?
You're not my mother.
I'm the one who wants to get married,
not someone else.
And I'm really sincere.
I love you, truly, the way you are.
I have no other intention.
Let's not overthink it, let's prove it.
We met because of God's will.
I will make him my husband.
In my opinion,
it really illustrated her position,
that she had power
and authority in the film industry.
Meanwhile, I can never seem
to feel fulfilled or satisfied.
The baby you are
carrying deserves a life, too.
You are an evil woman with a rotten heart.
Here, take that.
Gobble that up!
Meanwhile, Rapi Films
developed the stories of
THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC and NYI BLORONG
with their own new star, Joice Erna.
But after I watched it, there was no
NYI BLORONG aura in Joice Erna.
The aura was in Suzzanna,
from her eyes to everything else.
I once asked her, "How do you feel
about this title,
'The Queen of Horror'?"
She said, "I'm proud. I'm happy.
What I've done hasn't been in vain.
It means that what I've
strived for has been successful.
When I act in horror movies and
scare lots of people, why do I feel good?
I feel happy to have so
many fans. Even though
I scared them, they still
ask for pictures with me.
Many of the young ones
call me, "Aunt Suzzanna.
Some say that after
Sisworo passed away in 1993,
Suzzanna did not want to
make movies with anyone else.
Suzzanna's mother used to live
in Holland as a Dutch citizen.
When she was old, Suzzanna was afraid
that no one would take care of her mother.
So she came to Indonesia
and stayed here at our home.
Out of 120 film companies in Indonesia,
if I'm not mistaken, only 4 remained.
116 companies went out of business.
The golden age of soap operas.
Princess Jasmine, who was torn apart,
has come back.
My life has no meaning anymore.
What kind of illness?"
I asked.
That's what friends were wondering.
Suzzanna was sick with diabetes.
No, I didn't know
anything right away.
I also seldom met with Clift.
Clift wouldn't open the door.
We rarely socialized.
From head to toe,
I brought everything Suzzanna needed.
I lived in Jakarta at the time.
Mom had moved to Magelang.
Then I relocated in 2005,
actually because Mom asked me to.
My dad didn't agree with this.
He considered Magelang
to be a city for retirement.
He said, "You're still young.
Move there later when you're retired."
But Mom said,
"Do it now. I'm lonely."
KM doesn't work;
her husband doesn't work.
No income. No money.
Suzzanna supplies
$1000 every month.
Kiki Maria and Clift Sangra
had been feuding for a long time.
I lent them my house for them to live in.
There were builders in the house.
I wanted to see what the workers
were doing, what they were making.
I went there and I found two workers there.
Suddenly, one of them said to me,
"Sir, how come you
want to have an old wife?
You're handsome, rich,
lots of money, an artist.
If you want to find
a young one, it's easy."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, I can help you.
You can get a young wife,
a beautiful one."
"What does that mean?"
"To get rid of Miss Suzzanna."
"What do you mean?"
"To kill her, sir."
Suzzanna was dealing
with a family conflict.
There was a fight
involving a gun.
The reporters asked a lot of questions,
most of which were answered by Suzzanna.
There was an indication
that Kiki hated Clift
because (fit was going
to get her inheritance.
Let's not tam about Kim.
KM is my daughter.
I know her.
However mean she got with me,
she doesn't want to know me...
I know my daughter.
But Abri...
Since the beginning,
I have never liked him.
Suzzanna said
she missed her grandchild.
"I want to see my grandchild.
I miss him," she said.
We knock on the door,
nobody answered.
Finally, Suzzanna said,
"Try calling." So I called.
Km, your mother is
at the door of the house.
They immediately hung up.
Well, the door to the house opened.
The gate was opened.
KM, her daughter, points at me.
"You're not coming in!"
Suzzanna went inside.
Suddenly her son-in-law
was screaming,
"Listen, Mom,
you have to trust Kiki!
(Ft wants to km you, Mom!
Finally, the door opened
and I was told to come in.
"What's going on?
You want to kill Mother?!"
"Not me!" I said.
"I swear in the name of Jesus.
Call the handyman.
We'll discuss it and go to court
if we need to. Call the police."
Clift was told to leave the house again.
When (fit was
stepping out of the room,
Abri immediately charged at him,
wanting to fight,
attacking his stomach.
His hands were punching
and struck Clift a couple of times.
Then Kiki grabbed a helmet,
and hit him on the side
of the head a lot of times.
I got a wound here,
torn from nose to eye.
It tore open from the
beating of that helmet.
Blood was everywhere.
Kim ran in front of me
and climbed onto a table and took
something from the top of the cupboard.
When she made this movement,
it was sharp, like a knife.
When I saw the knife, my heart sank.
She gave it to Abri.
I remembered I carried a weapon.
I'll give a warning shot.
It all stopped for a moment.
Abri stopped punching.
But then, when he saw the pistol,
he immediate; started attacking
(lift again with his knife!
Once blood spurted from Clift,
I couldn't talk anymore.
I couldn't scream.
My mouth felt dry.
My heart felt flighty.
I shot him in the leg.
But he didn't react!
I thought, "Is this person
invulnerable or what?"
I aimed again. I wanted to shoot him in
the other leg, the right leg,
but he grabbed the gun
and it went off,
hitting him in the stomach.
To my knowledge, Kiki and Abri
also made a police report.
The information was inconsistent.
From what I gathered,
Gift shot someone.
So, when this news was published,
it exploded.
I think the whole country was stirred up.
For a while, if there was an
unexpected call, if there was any problem,
if their family was falling apart,
Clift was always blamed.
So I'm not surprised.
I once asked, "Name just one of
Clift's mistakes. Prove one of his crimes.
Not just hearsay, but from ten
witnesses, five witnesses.
Prove one of Clift's
infractions. One witness.
Prove it so that I know.
Before I die, I want to know.
The conflict between
Abfi Arse and (lift Sangra
led Suzzanna's family to move
Arie's skeleton from a cemetery in Bogor.
The relocation of Arie's remains
shocked the entire family.
Meanwhile, Suzzanna has
recently isolated herself.
There is news that
Suzzanna is currently in a coma.
She was just released after being
hospitalized for 14 days
and in a coma for two days.
Previously, as you know, she was
once in a coma for four days
and hospitalized for one month.
Well, that just happened again.
Suzi's condition is unpredictable.
More dramatically, viewers,
Suzzanna intends
to be buried in the
same grave as Arie.
Like a scene from a horror film,
Suzzanna's life becomes increasingly tense.
Is this the end of the horror story
of Suzzanna's life?
GHOST AMBULANCE
I have to do things that
make me happy.
I knew from her doctor that
she was actually seriously ill at the time.
So, she wasn't fit to film,
but she made a cameo appearance.
They would just call me,
"Suzzanna, Suzzanna!"
When I stare at the mirror,
I sometimes wonder,
"I get told I'm beautiful
and look young. Is it really so?"
"How old are you?"
"65 years and 3 months."
It's because of Clift. His love and
affection for me keeps me young.
In my first film,
Suzzanna was my mother.
In Suzzanna's last film,
Suzzanna played my mother.
It matched.
Now Clift and I are
repeating the film SANGKURIANG
where I was the mother
and Clift was my son.
Your aspiration to love me
has been fulfilled.
For me, this is an incredible thing.
It's hard to say what I'm feeling.
I'm more than happy; I'm
more touched. There's sadness.
It's not sadness where I feel down,
but a sadness that makes me think,
"How can I go
through all this?"
I haven't got my cemetery plot just yet.
I have tasks I need to complete first.
Right after GHOST AMBULANCE,
she said,
"I think my time is about to come.
I miss Mommy, I miss Daddy,
I miss Arie."
She asked me to hold her hand.
After she said it, she suddenly
inhaled and exhaled.
I thought she was tired. But again, she
took a deep breath and let it out.
Predictably, suspicions
fell on Clift Sangra.
It was inevitable, because they
were the only ones there.
I went to her house,
but the door was locked.
They had already gone to the cemetery.
I quickly went to the cemetery.
I wanted to attend the
Catholic Rite of Committal.
By the time I arrived at the
cemetery, the funeral was over.
Why should it be such
a hidden event?
They said it was
because her will requested it.
She might want to avoid other people,
but to avoid her own family, too?
It raised a few questions, of course,
with the very simple funeral.
But, yeah, we never knew
what really happened.
When she was dying, Suzzanna
didn't want it revealed to the public.
So, it was Suzzanna's request.
She didn't want to be exposed,
didn't want to be seen as a
pale body in the coffin.
She wanted the public to remember
the beautiful Suzzanna.
The news said that her
funeral was hidden by me.
I don't care what people say.
I don't have anything to say back to them.
They said I wanted to
kill Suzzanna. It's okay.
I have nothing to lose
from their words.
There's a letter from
the Magelang police and
the doctor, stating her
death was due to illness.
People's curiosity went beyond speculation.
There was an outcry for an autopsy,
but I didn't let it happen.
I didn't do it,
because she was already dead.
We used to sleep in the same room,
but I snored when I slept.
When Suzzanna got sick,
she'd become annoyed by this.
She said, "Darling, will you please
move to another room? I can't sleep.
So I moved rooms. "Okay, I'll move,
but what if you need anything?"
"If I need anything,
I'll just knock, knock on the wall."
Knock, knock, knock.
That was her call to me.
So, once she was gone, she had died,
and she had been buried here,
the wall in my room would still get
the knock, knock, knock.
The knocks on the wall went
on for about two years.
During that period, she would appear,
in front of the bedroom, in the TV room.
So, even after she died,
she wasn't gone immediately.
No, she lingered in our home.
There are even remakes,
reboots, rebirths.
SUZZAN NA:
BURIED ALIVE
They said the ghost of Mrs. Suzzanna.
I really saw Suzzanna.
She has become a...
Sundel bolong'.!
They wouldn't change the look
of the person playing Suzzanna.
Always with the mole in the same place.
They don't want to stray from that,
because of how iconic Suzzanna is.
And not only because of her legacy,
the movies that she made,
but because she represents not only
the past but also the future.
Hope.
The hope that Indonesian films can
connect to their audience.