Roh: What Happens in the Malaysian Jungle Stays in the Malaysian Jungle
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-minus
The title of Roh, the horror movie Malaysia has put up as its International Oscar nominee this year, is apparently Malay for “Soul.” This is an important thing to know if you and the kids are looking for the Pixar film of the same name.
To be clear, far fewer animals and people were slaughtered in the animated film.
On the other hand, it’s interesting to see other cultures embrace concepts like paganistic evil found lurking in nature - which has been used to great effect in Western horrors like Midsommar and the original The Wicker Man.
A mud-covered girl emerges from the jungle with a dire message in Roh.
Roh begins with a Quran verse in which Satan challenges God over the worthiness of Adam, saying, “I am better than he. You created me from fire, and him You created from clay.”
Soon we meet a single mother named Mak (Farah Ahmad) warning her children Along (Mhia Farhana) and Angah (Harith Haziq) not to trust anything in the jungle because it is a source of evil.
Did I mention they live in a hut in the jungle? Location, location, location.
She may be on to something though, because soon a mud-covered, bedraggled and ill-fated little girl shows up at their door to tell them that they will all be dead before the first full moon.
I’m not a theologian, so I’m not sure where the separation of humans and the wild comes from, nor the antipathy many of our species have towards nature. Maybe it has something to do with what went down in the Garden of Eden.
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In his debut feature, director Emir Ezwan leans to the ambiguous as far as exposition and explanations. His filmic playground is the jungle and the dark, as inherently frightening as the dark forests in The Blair Witch Project and The Evil Dead (both of which I suspect Ezwan has seen).
Roh is a simple story, fueled entirely by atmosphere, new characters introduced almost as in a fairy tale, as we wait to see how the little girl’s prediction manifests itself. A witchy woman named Tok (June Lojong), friendly and helpful at first, shows up with helpful advice for warding off evil. (Warning to animal lovers: chickens are killed in this movie).
And then there’s the Stranger (Namron), a blind-in-one-eye brute wielding a spear and demanding to know the whereabouts of the mud-covered girl. He promises to leave once he finds her or her body, but they don’t call the Devil the Prince of Lies for nothing (if that’s indeed who he is).
People who are used to the beats of typical Hollywood horror may be frustrated by the slow pace of Ezwan’s tension-building. And the ambiguity of the ending in particular (again, tone-wise, think Blair Witch) isn’t for people who like their loose ends tied.
I’ll go out on a limb and say Malaysia will come up significantly short in its bid for an Oscar. But for Halloween weekend, Roh isn’t a bad mood-setter.
Roh. Directed and co-written by Emir Ezwan. Stars Farah Ahmad, Mhia Farhana and Namron. Available on VOD and via virtual cinemas on Friday, October 29.