With the quickness strike out for the less of us doubt
Mercy of the man who put the pen in our mouth
Word write us well signed, “Forgiveness for sale”
I’m through being full, of all the might you want killed
The fiction will see the real
The answer will question still
In your body to blood as your parents once wept
You will follow their lead one by one, every step– “The Willing Well I: Fuel for the Feeding End” by Coheed and Cambria
The year is 2024. Horror films have been a staple of cinema nearly since the birth of the art format. Stories of demons, spirits, zombies, vampires, ghouls, and ghosts have been part of the fabric of storytelling for even longer. With 1997’s Scream, the approach of meta-horror became popularized enough to teach general audiences the rules of horror films and brought about a shift in approach to telling horror stories where they were no longer all hack, slash, excise, and/or survive (if you’re lucky). Not only did this bring about a new wave of cinema, it brought with it a more aware audience, hungry for artisans and creatives who could take the expected, the known unknowns, if you will, and gift unto audiences an adventure that surprises. Having its international premiere at Fantastic Fest 2024, director/co-writer Yusron Fuadi’s (Skull) second feature film The Draft! (Setan Alas!) begs the question: if you found yourself in a horror film situation, what would you do? Would you give in to the inevitability or take your fate into your hands, even if it meant fighting G-d?
Ani (Anggi Waluyo) brings her boyfriend Budi (Ibrahim Alhami) and their three friends Iwan, Amir, and Wati (Adhin Abdul Hakim, Winner Wijaya, and Anastasia Herzigova, respectively) to her family’s isolated villa in the wilderness for a vacation. It’s been a long time since the five friends have gotten away and now’s the perfect time. Unfortunately, it’s been so long since Ani or her parents have been to check on the place, left in the care of Dadang (Ernanta Kusuma), that she doesn’t realize it’s a little overrun by foliage and age. To make matters worse, the power’s out and there’s no cellular service. Having traveled the whole way, the five decide to make the best of it, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes during their first night, Ani and her friends discover that things at the villa are not what they seem and it’s going to take all of their wits to make it out alive.
L-R: Winner Wijaya as Amir, Ibrahim Alhami as Budi, Anggi Waluyo as Ani, Adhin Abdul Hakim as Iwan, and Anastasia Herzigova as Wati in THE DRAFT!. Photo courtesy of Fantastic Fest.
The Draft! is a film you know in a package you don’t. It’s got the location, the gathering of friends, each of whom fits into a specific archetype, and so much murder. What it doesn’t have is a clear idea of what the hell it’s doing and that’s entirely by design. Locked room mysteries only work if a way in and out secretly exists; deaths only mean something if they do to the characters and, by extension, us; and contrivances are only ignorable if everything else fits neatly together — all of which The Draft! writers Fuadi, Anindita Suryarasmi, B.W. Purbanegara (Tales of the Otherwords), and Richard James Halstead (Marapu, Fire & Ritual) understand. This, dear reader, is where the comedy comes from. Not in the characters doing something silly, but in their awareness of how little sense certain things make as they scramble for safety. As in most meta-horror stories, there’s always a Randy (Scream’s Jamie Kennedy) or a Bernie (It’s a Wonderful Knife’s Jess McLeod) who serves as the audience surrogate, and Wijaya’s Amir fits that role doling out recommendations, advice, and generally trying to guide his friends through one murderous attempt after another. This is the smartest thing that the story does as it becomes the lynch pin for everything else that the film seeks to do, intentionally or otherwise. The use of Amir not only helps wink (metaphorically) at the audience, but it enables The Draft! to stay absolutely hilarious in the face of certain demise. A demise is certain to the point of forgone; the question then shifts to how do you take back the power?
This is where The Draft! ascends from meta-horror into the glorious heights of meta stories like Last Action Hero (1993) and Leonor Will Never Die (2022) as the violence and the awareness of it are only a small part. In a particularly rough moment, a conversation takes place in which the characters discuss how they might survive, an inevitable panic and fear spreading through the remaining members of the friend group. The answer one offers is, to paraphrase, that they have free will and spirit and will take command until they cannot. In a film dealing in invisible forces causing terrible physical destruction and the undead, its narrative raises a magnificent middle finger to The Powers That Be. While this has a specific and targeted meaning within the scope of the script, it’s also a beautiful moment of self-actualization and agency that too few horror characters are afforded. Even then, it’s usually under specific conditions and only when the Final Girl or lone survivor is on their last legs (see: 2011’s The Cabin in the Woods and the end of humanity). Given that The Draft! is roughly 84-minutes *with credits*, there’s no time for messing around, for delay, or for buildup, which requires the film to spend a good amount of time on this element and the entire film is richer as a result. Imagine if you not only discovered that you’re in a horror film, but that rebellion from the script is an option. In the exploration of what this means, not only are audiences rewarded with some truly outrageous hilarity via ingenious twisting of expectations, we also find ourselves getting as wrapped up in the characters’ reactions to incidents as they do; therefore, when Amir is running his mouth, we care; when Iwan is being the dumbass outdoorsy type, we laugh; and when Ani has to make the hard call, we hold our breath. In this way, The Draft! holds as much reverence for horror as it does explode with middle fingers at the concept of reducing someone to a one-sentence summary before subjecting them to the worst experience of their lives.
The above review is dancing around a lot to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but it’s important to note that it’s not just the script that’s doing some great work here. For every shift or change that the narrative employs, the cinematography from Mandela Majid (The Prize!) adjusts to match, ensuring that there’s fluidity scene to scene within the context of unpredictability that flows throughout. Even with all the bloodshed and horror, the playfulness in the visual presentation of The Draft! never undercuts the stakes, instead, it raises them. The music, too, from composers Clemens Felix Setiyawan (Skull) and I Ketut Sumerjana (Skull) has the unenviable task of meeting the aural needs of the primary genre while supporting the meta elements, aspects it does with such ease that the audience is both hyperaware of the changes and so wrapped up in the stakes that the music meets the moments so as to envelope and uplift. As an American audience member, the only way the music could’ve gotten better as it relates to the meta-narrative is if it had incorporated punk rock or outlaw country to give the figurative one finger salute some extra oomph. But with these technical elements executed as they are, plus the script, plus the commitment by the central cast, The Draft! is a horrorshow with harmony that no one who watches will ever forget.
Screening during Fantastic Fest 2024.
Available in the U.K. and Ireland on digital October 27th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Fantastic Fest 2024 The Draft! webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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