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Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review: JA Kerswell

A slight Indonesian slasher that is ostensibly a whodunit, but where the killer’s identity couldn’t be clearer if they were wearing a see-through mask. Two young women agree to spend the weekend in a remote vacation house deep in the woods with four young men they meet in a night club—only for someone in a blue rain slicker to turn up and pummel them with a double-headed mallet. Slightly distinguished by a villain with a penchant for martial arts, it is otherwise for completists of Indonesian slasher cinema only. 
 
Renata (Ratu Felisha) is surprised when her friend Andein (Uli Auliani) turns up at her house after she seemingly ditched her at a masked party a few nights earlier. Andein suggests she is fine and has just been doing “Young girl things” (but has a brief flashback to some unspecified trauma) before suggesting that they go to a club that night in Jakarta. There, they meet four young men who are also out partying. They suggest to Ren and Andien that they join them at one of their grandfather’s homes deep in the woods the next day.
 
Seemingly getting on like a house on fire, the group head to the vacation home in a van and then hike the rest of the way. Andien tells one of the young men that she would like to go to the nearby waterfall after one of them mentions the local beauty spot because she would like to have a swim. However, once they reach the (not very impressive) location, she tells him she has a sense of Deja Vu and gravely intones: “I was raped and dumped in this place!” She then tells him she was joking and needs to pee but has vanished when he goes looking for her. He is then set about by someone in a hooded blue rain slicker with a giant mallet, who beats him to death and leaves his body in the woods.
 
Meanwhile, back at the house, Ren and the other three young men grow increasingly concerned and go looking for the pair. Soon, they too will find themselves in danger from the Pacamac maniac … 

Sporting a mystery with a solution so obvious that it must have been banged out on typewriter with that double-ended mallet, NAUGHTY YOUNG PEOPLE is slight in almost every regard conceivable. The titillating title doesn’t live up to its promise either unless lingering shots of women posing in leisurewear might drive you into a frenzy. Its poster teases shirtless hunks, and it doesn’t deliver on that, either. The killer’s outfit looks like Ben Willis went to a dollar store for his rain slicker. It at least scores some points for the killer showing off their martial arts moves and throwing victims through the air (although you can easily spot a couple of stunt ropes that they either couldn’t afford to digitally remove or just couldn’t bother to).
 
The following paragraph features some spoilers. Although, beyond obvious, skip if you don’t want to know who is behind the mayhem. To probably no one’s shock, Andien is the killer, as she had been raped and dumped in the waterfall by the same four men—who presumably don’t recognise her because she was wearing a tiny mask at the party. She is getting her revenge for the attack and for being left for dead. However, the film ends on a bum note when her best friend Ren kills her (after being attacked by Andien for no reason) and walks off into the sunset with the last remaining rapist!
 
Obviously inspired by the runaway box office success of the much more entertaining Indonesian slasher AIR TERJUN PENGANTIN (2009) (which also featured a waterfall), at a brief 70 minutes, the film at least doesn’t risk outstaying its welcome. Directed by Koya Pagayo (under a ​pseudonym) —who is sometimes known as Indonesia’s answer to Uwe Boll—this was one of ten movies he churned out in 2010 alone. Some of the cinematography isn’t half bad, with an effective use of near-fish eye lenses. But the whole thing is so gossamer thin you’ll be hard-pressed to remember anything after the end credits have rolled. You'd be better off watching the film it is cashing in on instead.
 
For some reason, NAUGHTY YOUNG PEOPLE erroneously carries the brief synopsis most places online: “Two divorced couples try to reconcile their love but stumbled on a religious custom they can't defy”—which bears no resemblance to its plot but might have ultimately been more interesting than this.   

BODY COUNT 4: 
Female 0 / Male 4

1. Male is beaten to death with a double-headed mallet
2. Male is garotted with barb wire
3. Male is hung
4. Female is stabbed through the back with a pitchfork

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