He seduced and destroyed her. Now, she would make them pay!
The Queen of Black Magic is a 1981 Indonesian Folk Horror film.
Murni is a young woman whose lover left her for another woman. After the other woman hallucinates, she's blamed and thrown off a cliff to her death. A mysterious stranger rescues her and teaches her to become a master sorceress. Murni returns to town and brings down a terrible vengeance with her magic, but the stranger has his own agenda in the shadows...
The film received a remake of the same name in 2019.
This film contains examples of:
- Bee Afraid: Murni kills her first target by conjuring a swarm of bees to sting him to death.
- Big Bad: Gendon, the Evil Sorcerer who manipulates Murni into taking up sorcery.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Murni is still attracted to Permana even after learning he's her brother. Permana does not seem to return these feelings.
- The Casanova: Kohar broke a lot of hearts, including Murni's, before marrying Baidah.
- Censor Steam: As Gendon teaches Murni black magic, she is completely naked but hiding behind a plume of smoke.
- Defiled Forever: Murni believes she's this because she gave her virginity to Kohar before he dumped her.
- Hanging Around: Murni controls a sash to hang one of her targets from a tree.
- I Found You Like This: After Murni is thrown off a cliff, she is nursed back to health by a kind stranger who teaches her the sorcery needed to seek vengeance.
- Job Title
- Laughing Mad: Baidah's hallucinations briefly drive her to this.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Exaggerated during a sex scene between Kohar and Baidah, in that the latter's wearing the bedsheet while the former's on top of her.
- No One Could Survive That!: At first Kohar doesn't believe that Murni has returned because nobody should have survived the height she fell from.
- Not What It Looks Like: Gendon uses magic to make it look like Permana is cheating on Murni so she'll stay under his thumb.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Over the course of the film, Murni goes from innocent woman to lynching victim to vengeful sorceress to trying to slaughter the entire village before finally sacrificing herself to achieve redemption.
- Protagonist Title
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Murni uses magic to force Kohar to rip his own head off.
- Quicksand Sucks: Murni conjures quicksand to drown her third victim.
- Redemption Equals Death: A severely-injured Murni uses the last of her energy to kill Gendon, thus saving the village.
- Taking Over the Town: Turns out Gendon did all of this because he's bitter about losing an election to become headman decades ago, and wants to take over the village or destroy it.
- Torches and Pitchforks: After Baidah goes mad, Kohar blames Murni using Black Magic and leads an army of torch-carrying villagers to kill her. They burn her house down with her mother inside and throw her off a cliff, which indirectly leads to her learning real sorcery.
- Voodoo Doll: Gendon uses the Indonesian equivalent to control people.
- Worst Wedding Ever: The film opens with one. The bride has hallucinations of evil spirits and snakes, the groom's attempts to calm her down cause chaotic disruption of the wedding party, the local shaman starts levitating, and it starts to rain. Murni is blamed for all of this and nearly murdered, kickstarting the plot.
- The X of Y
- Your Head Asplode: Murni defeats Gendon by making his head burst open.
