The script is a few drafts away from perfect, but there’s fun to be had with this wittily constructed indie.
★★★☆☆
“It’s just like a horror film,” announces Iwan (Adhin Abdul Hakim) towards the beginning of The Draft! when the generator breaks down. The setting—faulty power, remote forest location, no phone signal—is pure Evil Dead, starting with a car journey to a house in the woods. But in making such a bare-faced comment, Iwan’s character becomes an equally important reference to the now familiar genre of meta-horror.
Being a category with such clear rules and techniques, the horror film has been a target for inventive writers to begin breaking the fourth wall since the 90s hit Scream. Not content to merely point out its own references, though, The Draft! goes one better. Five friends arrive at a villa deep in the forest, for a holiday from college. There are, of course, standard types here: Iwan is a hot-headed jock, Amir (Winner Wijaya) the nerdish tagalong obsessed with movies, and there’s a sweetheart couple in the group for good measure. So far, so Cabin in the Woods.
Ani (Anggi Waluyo) used to stay at this tumble-down home with her family, and we quickly begin to learn about a tragedy that occurred during this time. As memories emerge, The Draft! wastes no time in rattling through its genre tropes. Amir’s camcorder picks up some found footage-style shakycam; there are chilling mirror shots of a ghostly girl; Ani’s slightly too ingratiating uncle (Ernanta Kusuma) even surprises them on arrival, to advise them on looking after the house.
It’s worth saying here that much of this film’s pleasure is in the shock of its delivery. There are twists early on that are brilliantly handled, and any spoiler-fearing horror fan may want to stop reading now and watch it blind. You’ve been warned.
The narrative seems to spill out faster than your typical ghost story, and director Yusron Fuadi is clearly a filmmaker skilled in negotiating genre expectations. The offbeat rhythm, as it is soon revealed, is deliberate. Cinephile Amir realises it first: these friends are merely characters, being written and developed by a struggling screenwriter trying to get his horror script off the ground. The film they’re in is still in its draft stages, to the extent that the actual specifics of their antagonist hasn’t even been decided yet. In a moment that recalls Inception, they realise they can’t remember their own backstory, or why they went to the house in the first place—it’s all a blur up to the car journey we watch in the opening.
As a concept, it allows Fuadi’s film to be a riot of invention. The slow realisation is fun to watch, and the main enjoyment comes from watching the gang push the boundaries of their situation. The writer character, due to practical limitations and creative indecision, soon begins editing his work; the monster switches from a possessive spirit (whose method of self-mutilating its victims is nicely gory) to ghosts and more with vigour. As different challenges are imposed, lenses and colour filters push the location into more expressive territory, and the characters’ struggles to keep up lead to chaotic action sequences.
But while this structure allows for such flair on show, it also becomes The Draft!’s Achilles heel. Once the writer is revealed, all dramatic tension vanishes: we are shown deaths being cancelled out, and the work that Amir puts in to figuring out the logic of the world is essentially undercut. The consequential drama is surely in the real world of the writer, but Fuadi’s film frustratingly refuses to flesh this out. By the end, it builds to a neat punchline, but it’s a conclusion that could have come from a short; the concept can’t satisfyingly sustain a feature-length narrative.
The Verdict
On the whole, there is much to recommend in The Draft! It’s a box of tricks that does well with a limited budget, and sells less polished moments with creative cinematography. However, it doesn’t propel itself as a story in the way that the set-up promises, unravelling quickly in your mind as the credits begin to roll.
Words by Max King
The Draft! is available on digital platforms now.
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.