Srigala (Sisworo Gautama Putra, 1981)
When Sean S. Cunningham gently ripped off Mario Bava’s 1971 “Bay of Blood” and unleashed the brilliant — and extremely straightforward — “Friday the 13th” in 1980, I guess he never knew what a tidal wave of slashers it would start all over the world. For sure, it wasn’t the first slasher hit. John Carpenter’s 1978 “Halloween” and Bob Clark’s 1974 “Black Christmas” came earlier and paved the way for what Cunningham later did, at least in the sense of a typical American slasher. Bava’s film is more of a classic whodunit, just with tons of gore and a sharp satirical edge, rather than a traditional slice ’n’ dice flick. Somewhere, I once read that over a thousand slashers were made during the eighties, and a whole lot of them were — of course — inspired by “Friday the 13th.” It’s easy to understand why; easy to find locations, cheap actors, and quick and dirty shooting schedules.
Rapi Films, the legendary Indonesian production company, decided to jump on the slasher trend, which was both brave and smart during a time when Indonesian cinema mostly consisted of comedies, dramas, or paranormal horror films inspired by local folklore and Islamic mythology. Marketed as a mystery thriller, “Srigala” became a hit in its native country — but outside, in the rest of the world, it mostly lived on as a legend — or really, really bad VHS rips on torrent sites like Cinemageddon. That’s how I first saw it, and the quality was horrendous! However, that didn’t stop me from enjoying it — with a crappy fullscreen version and the blurriness of VHS. Truth be told, and I hope I won’t upset anyone now, but the only good thing the VHS format did was to completely destroy the intended quality experience of filmmakers. But that’s another story.
So imagine my surprise when TerrorVision, a new distributor focusing on rare genre movies, announced a 2K Blu-ray release! I had to pre-book it directly, and when it finally arrived, I was blown away by the restoration. Because “Srigala” is a damn fine-looking movie, so far from the earlier version I had seen. Finally, the many night shots made sense, scenes that earlier just were a blurry mess, and the correct ratio really brings forth the beautiful cinematography.
I once described “Srigala” as “Friday the 13th” with a treasure instead of Jason Voorhees, and I believe I still can stand by that statement. While the first half is kinda different, but still not (it feels more like an interpretation of Cunningham’s movie, with a lake and kills in the forefront), as the movie progresses to the finale, it almost turns into a copy of “Friday the 13th,” and not in a bad way. Just with the “Turkish Exorcist,” “Sheitan,” it almost seems like the filmmakers used the original movie as a storyboard and carefully copied it — which also transfers the quality. It’s still a very effective last act, and it delivers. It might miss the talent of Tom Savini when it comes to the special effects, but it is gory — and it has something Jason Voorhees doesn’t have: a spectacular and stunt-packed boat chase! Me like!
“Srigala” is definitely something for slasher aficionados — or those who are generally interested in eighties horror — so buy that Blu-ray while it’s still in print.
Fred Andersson is a Swedish story producer, researcher and writer with over twenty years of experience in commercial television and the author of four books. He lives in Märsta, outside Stockholm, with his photographer husband Grzegorz and two overly active cats. Join him on Twitter and Instagram.
