Interview With The 'Pontianak'

The house in Yan was in such an idyllic setting, with the imposing Gunung Jerai in the background. In the mornings when we accompanied Mak to the mosque, the fragrance from the cempaka flowers drifted in the air, giving that added chill. I shiver just thinking about it. Especially when we hurried past that big tree – according to murmurs, it housed a certain ‘being’. You know – the one that sits high in the trees and flies in the night. Pontianak. I never failed to look up whenever we walked past.

I think that was where we learnt about Pontianak. Well, apart from the black and white movie on telly, and of course stories we heard from older cousins when they spent the nights with us and we’d huddle in a corner and listened eyes wide open.

Of course now, we are wiser and realised that those stories were meant to keep us indoors at night.

A year ago, Shuhaimi Baba revived the Pontianak on screen with her Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam. Thirty years after it was banished by the censorship board! And her Pontianak – the lovely Maya Karin is far from the Pontianak that remained in the deep recesses of my young mind. I first met her when they were doing a reshoot of some scenes and Maya was wiping off her grotesque make-up when she was introduced to me.


Not two hours before writing this, I met Maya again. Three hectic days at the Estepona Fantasy and Terror Film Festival in Spain and she still looked ravishing.

And she has every reason to look glowing and happy - once again she bagged the Best Performer award, her second for her role as Pontianak in PHSM 2. The first – you will recall – was at the 49th Asia Pacific Film Festival in Japan.

I myself became interested in horror movies last year just as Shuhaimi reinstated our own monstrous feminine back on to the screen. I just wanted to know why in South East Asia there are more female monsters – compared to the west. Take Nang Nak - love it though I cried buckets everytime I watched it. It was an interesting term I had when I just devoted part of module to a study of horror movies and ended up presenting a paper on The Monstrous Feminine in SEA Horror movies in Sorbonne last summer. It was fun.

So when Shuhaimi hinted that she was doing a sequel I was really excited and I toyed with her suggestion that I should try script writing – of course that didn’t materialise. My mum was ill and there were other pressing matters – if not I’d be there as well – getting the awards, no?

But today I was back interviewing the ‘Pontianak’. And what a lovely lass! Once in a while she’d give me that look that sent the shivers up my spine. The same feeling I got walking under that big tree near our house in Yan.