twist of fait accomplis

Mystics in Bali, 1981 (aka Leák)
Directors: H. Tjut Djalil
Availability: Difficult (on bootleg import video from Bizarre Videos)

Imagine, if you will, an Indonesian horror film that features a woman whose head detaches from her body, flies around at night (with the spinal cord still attached), and seeks out pregnant women to eat their babies. That is the wonder of the penanggalan myth featured in Mystics in Bali, an insanely absurd, yet extremely watchable, offering from the Far East. If I owned a DVD company, this is one of the first five movies I would remaster and re-release.

The story begins with an American reporter who travels to Bali to learn about black magic. After all, she has experience with voodoo in the Carribean, how different can it be? Very, it turns out. She finds herself in a mess of trouble, and thankfully so, for how else would we get to witness a flying head? The movie's charmingly awkward script is well-paced with plenty of high spots to please gorehounds and fans of the obscure. The traditional Balinese soundtrack is a treat, too, as I doubt such percussion-laden music has ever been used in a horror film before.

Fans of this flick will also want to be sure to check out the even more obscure Witch with Flying Head (available only as an nth generation copy of a non-subtitled, Vietnamese-dubbed rental copy) for more penanggalan (and kung-fu!) wackiness.