Everyone knows that one of the best aspects of film festivals is experiencing foreign films that might not get a chance to see the light of day in the States. Fantastic Fest continually does an excellent job of bringing these cutting-edge films to the fore and letting us bask in their glory. One film that really stuck out to me was an Indonesian film from 2023 called The Draft!. This meta-horror comedy film seemed right up my alley, and I couldn’t wait to feast my eyes on it.
The Draft! follows a group of friends, Budi (Haydar Salishz), Ani (Putri Anggie), Iwan (Adhin Abdul Hakim), Wati (Anastasia Herzigova), and Amir (Winner Wijaya), who take a weekend trip out to Ani’s family villa. Once there, they are greeted by Uncle Dadang (Ernanta Kusuma), who acts as the unnoticed harbinger of doom. The friends soon realize things are far from normal when events turn supernormal. Can they choose their own path and Until Dawn their way out of this scenario? Or are their lives up to the whim of something more omniscient?
If there’s one thing I go crazy for, it’s meta-genre films. It’s always a blast to have a talented filmmaker[s] pull back the curtain and poke fun at the genre. The good examples are great, the bad examples are fine. The description of this film led me to think I’d be viewing one thing, in reality, it was a whole lot more. The Draft! plays it fast and loose. Its overall demeanor is, “If you don’t vibe with this, that’s your problem.” This is one of the very few times your overly critical friend can’t do the Leonardo whistle thing when a cup is filled at a slightly different level than it was in the previous shot. The whole bit of the film makes it almost criticism-proof.
Even if the acting and practical effects weren’t as effective as they were, you, again, can blame it on the bit. Writers Yusron Fuadi, Anindita Suryarasmi, B.W. Purba Negara, and Richard James Halstead crafted a fun love letter to multiple subgenres and put their hearts firmly on their sleeves. From one character calling another one out for, “ominous sentence structure,” to a hoard of zombies hellbent on ransacking the villa and dining on the residents inside, The Draft! can’t help but deliver at every turn. Does it feel sloppy at times? Sure, but again, the bit. Never has a film committed to the bit as much as The Draft!.
That being said, if the bit doesn’t work for you, then the film will not work. You can still appreciate the film’s wacky nature and charismatic actors, but that’s all. I guess that’s the film’s biggest negative. It’s a filmmaker’s job to take chances, to push the boundaries. Sometimes it’s their job to look at those boundaries and say, “Lovingly, fuck you.” Nowadays, more and more filmmakers are constantly straying from the norm and flipping genre conventions on their heads–we need this. We need filmmakers like Yusron Fuadi to poke the sleeping bear. The Draft! easily makes the Mount Rushmore of metahorror alongside the likes of Scary Movie, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, and Cabin in the Woods.