UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Queen of Black Magic (1981)

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Witches or Warlocks

Kohar (Teddy Purba) accuses Murni (Suzzanna) — who he dated with before his marriage and claims that she ruined the ceremony by creating a storm and convincing his bride Baedah (Siska Widowati) that her husband has become a skeleton — of the crime of witchcraft. The village rises up, burns her house down and tosses her off a cliff, only for her to be saved by an old man (W.D. Mochtar) and taught to become the queen of black magic.

Imagine the surprise of the villagers when she walks among them again, alive despite all they have done. Soon, she’s sending swarms of bees after them, commanding worms to eat their faces and stealing babies from their cribs. If that isn’t enough, she enchants someone into clawing off their own head, which then flies around the room biting people.

How do you become the queen of black magic? You get naked and do backflips under the full moon.

Also: Murni seems way too into her brother.

This is everything I wanted it to be and proves why Suzzanna was such a force in Indonesian horror. I’ve seen some people complain about the cheap effects. Get off your high horse. There are horrible people who need to have acid eggs thrown in their faces in this and maybe they don’t have all the big bucks that you do.

You can watch this on Shudder.

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