By drawing on psychoanalytical film theory that analyses how horror films represent widely held social anxieties I suggest that the popularity of horror films in post 1998 Indonesia indicates a broadly felt trauma about the unresolved violence of the New Order regime. In horror films pre-1998 neither this temporal gap existed nor did the mediating role played by youths. Typically the ghost lies dormant until disturbed by a group of unsuspecting Jakartan youths who then become entangled in her search for justice.
By closely analyzing the narrative structure of these films a temporal gap is evident between the original violent incident (rape murder suicide generally ‘crimes of passion’) and the reappearance of the ghost. In this paper I argue that when post-1998 horror films are subjected to greater scrutiny they reveal an insight into what haunts contemporary Indonesian society. Whilst these horror films have been popular with audiences critics have dismissed them as cheap commercial derivative and simplistic. Almost all of these horror films have deployed the familiar kuntilanak ghost a grotesque avenging female spirit whose desire for justice propels the film’s narrative. Significantly a third of all films produced over the last decade have been horror films. In the decade following the end of the New Order regime in 1998 feature film making in Indonesia returned to both productivity and popularity after a hiatus in the 1990s.
But is DreadOut really unique? If so, in what ways? And if not, which known formulas, conventions and intermedial representations can be identified? While this thesis does not seek to construct the Indonesian context of the game as “too different/other” to be decoded, it rather aims to differentiate between the features and formulas aimed primarily at an Indonesian audience, the features which are globally sold as “truly Indonesian” and those which are adapted from existing international horror (video game) conventions. The planned indie game created quite a buzz in the indie- and horror-gaming scene, due to its genuine and mostly "new" setting and ghostly appearances. They wanted to introduce new and “unique” experiences of Indonesian horror to the gamer audience. In December 2012, Bandung-based Company Digital Happiness turned to the internet community to promote and fund their planned Indonesian horror survival game DreadOut with a Indiegogo funding campaign.
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