Taring (2010)

From legendary production company Rapi Film (Queen of Black Magic, The Warrior, The Devil’s Sword and tons of other cult classics) comes a new latex-filled night of terror, Taring! Shot in the jungles of Indonesia and a cast of über-slim photo models with tons of make-up and couple of guys thrown in for the sake of being meat, this is a mix of typical Indonesian folklore, The Descent and every movie with photo models in peril! Hardly a masterpiece, but well worth watching.

A new day for our anoretic superstars, a new location – this time in the dangerous Werenggi forest! Perfect place, beautiful scenery – but also haunted and forbidden for children and pregnant women to enter! The locals almost run away in fear when they realize that bloodshed will come, but our street-smart shallow crew of fashion-experts just does not care. After a day of photography the night comes, and also the nasty creatures of the forest…

Taring is a good-looking production, low-budget but ambitious. Shot on HD and with a cast of cute actors and actresses. The cast is actually not bad. They are likable and have some depth. The typical gay make-up artist (“Cici”) is not too irritating and it has some character-twist which works better that it should. But it’s not a fanastic movie, it’s just a by-the-book people-getting-eaten-by-monsters which has a slightly more exotic setting then the normal US produced DTV movie.

It’s never determined if the monsters are some kind of mutated people or demons, or ghosts – but they really look cool. Slim, long hair and naked, with glowing eyes in the dark and big teeth. Sometime they walk on all four with their back facing the ground (just like the deleted spider walk in The Exorcist). They reminded me of the Swedish supernatural being Näcken (a water spirit) because of their fondness for sitting on a rock staring at their victims at first.

As usual the weakest thing with a movie like this is the generic plotline and maybe a bit sloppy editing/directing during a few of the horror scenes. One clip with a creature is used a couple of times for example. What they really succeed in is the darkness surrounding the camp, with creatures looking at them from the the bushes and trees. The gore is a bit up and down in quality. It’s latex all the way through, but cheap and maybe not that detailed. But it’s still bloody and quite graphic, lots of intestines and spurting blood.

Taring is a fun movie, never boring and gory. I’m sure fans of newer and older Indonesian genre cinema will appreciate this movie from Rapi Films!