“Toilet 105” (2010) – Indonesian Ghost/ Horror

Time for another review and so it’s off to Indonesia for some haunted high school hi-jinx in the Indonesian horror/ comedy “Toilet 105”….. Toilet!? Yes, you read it correctly… your favorite Catgirl actually managed to find herself a movie about a haunted toilet. Gotta admit… we don’t see many of those in this part of the world…. Must be an Asian thing. Hehehehe!!

Synopsis? Yep, I’ve got one… and it goes sorta like this: “Three friends, Okta (Ricky Harun), Ical (Lionil Tikoalu) and Rio (Rizky Putra), who are all students of SMU Bina Persada become infatuated with pretty Marsya (Coralie), a new transfer student to their school from France. Unfortunately, Okta already has a girlfriend, Viola (Navi Rizky) who is jealous of the attention he shows towards Marsya. Along with her fellow cheerleader friends, Viola also likes to bully new students.They soon turn their attentions towards poor Marsya.

Mrs. Endang (Suti Karno), the principal of the school repeatedly reminds the students to accept Marsya as one of the students, assisted by her husband, Mr Wahyu (Indra Birowo), who is a counseling teacher. But trouble always seems to happen anyway.

Marsya’s innocence often lands her in trouble but one thing that bothered her most is the appearance of a female ghost at the school toilet. Does this ghost have any connection with the disappearance of another pretty young student, Adelia, some time ago? What is the real hidden secret?”

I’ve had this one for a while now, but somehow it managed to hide itself away in my big ol’ backlog of DVD’s waiting to get watched. It managed to surface just in time for me to get a giggle remembering just how goofy it sounded when I bought it. Could I pass it up again? Nawwww…. I’m just that sort of silly lady. Plus… I couldn’t wait to see the look on Carolyn’s face when I sprung this one on her…..

You know how most of these Indonesian horror movies are. Simple, forgettable bits of cinema fluff that all seem to want to be a lil’ bit of “Ringu” mixed with more than just a wee bit of “Porky’s”…. all served up in about 80 minutes or so like a take-out horror/ comedy combo platter. A little from column A, a selection from column B, and a big helping of main entree from column C….. all plopped together in a styrofoam box with napkins and a plastic fork. Most of the time you know it’s not really any good for you… but somehow it’s usually so darn tasty and enjoyable that you just can’t resist it. At least I never can…. In this, “Toilet 105” sticks strictly to formula. We’re not talking great genre filmaking…. nope… not even close. But, then I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare when I read the plot description. Good thing too…. ’cause I definitely didn’t get anything close to that for my movie watching experience here.

You and I both have seen this plot before. Pretty young exchange student Marsya starts her classes at a new school. She meets the Romeo/ Class clown Okta, pisses off all the other girls by being just toooo darn sexy, exotic and unique, and runs into weird and mysterious goings on involving a missing student who may or may not have been murdered in the school.

There’s the usual expected elements. The guidance counselor… maybe he’s a pervo letch sating his lustful desires on vulnerable young pretty female students… maybe he’s really a caring stand-up guy that could actually help solve the strange haunting. Who knows? There’s the usual romantic plot in which “bad boy” Okta manages to somehow charm Marsya even as his bitchy ex-girlfriend Viola tries everything in her arsenal to make poor Marsya’s life Hell on Earth. Throw in a clueless night watchman right out of an “Abbot & Costello” film and you’ve just about got it all.

The haunting itself? Well that pretty much runs true to the usual formula too. It doesn’t take a viewer long to figure out that missing student Adelina is our ghost… and yes, she was murdered in the girl’s bathroom at the school during it’s renovations. From there it’s no great leap of logic to figure out she was cut into bits and buried under the cement during the construction and now haunts that bathroom trying hard to uncover the identity of her killer. At first, only Marsya seems to be able to see her… a kindred spirit that seems destined to suffer poor Adelina’s fate. However, before long, Adelina’s ghost starts becoming more active, bothering the clique of girls tormenting Marsya, as well as pestering those naughty boys who keep sneaking into the bathroom to peep on girls and masturbate. I have to say… far from coming across as fun loving roguish boys out for harmless fun, Okta and his buddies were… in this lil’ Catgirl’s opinion… just plain…. icky. Just the sort of immature creeps I too remember from High School. I liked them not in the least, and it really irritated me to see poor Marsya fall for their pathetic charms.

But all of that aside, eventually Marsya manages to run afoul of the murderer. It’s then that she figures out that Adelina’s ghost, far from trying to hurt her, has been trying to warn her all along. There’s the climactic encounter in the toilet at our film’s end, where the ghost is finally freed to seek her vengeance against that killer, seemingly to fade away leaving Marsya to become the new “top girl” at the school. It’s filled with severed body parts, exploding toilets, and all the usual effects, and while not terribly original, at least fit the overall tone of this one sufficiently….. and yes, there’s that usual “twist” ending at the very end of our story just like you’d expect.

Hmmmm? That just about sums this one up. It’s not exactly the best film out of Indonesia I’ve ever seen, but if this sort of simple story is your idea of fun, you just might like it. I can’t really say I was all that impressed. My biggest problem being the lack of sympathy for any of the characters here, with the possible exception of Marsya herself… Neko’s always felt a sort of kinship with “outsiders” and it’s probably the reason I like her at all…. especially given her inexplicable attraction to the creepy, immature Okta that so turned me off. With all that in mind, I can really honestly only give “Toilet 105” a 2 “Meows” out of 5. I wanted to like it more… but just plain didn’t. A shame, but there it is.

The DVD is pretty good… with wide-screen format, and available for that crazy affordable price that Indonesian horror DVD’s are known for. The English subtitles are on board, and as acceptable as usual. However, all in all, unless you collect these things like a certain crazy Catgirl, I wouldn’t rush right out to grab a copy. Trust me… somehow you’ll survive without it.

Trailer? You are in luck…. Neko managed to find one so that you too can share the horror that is… “Toilet 105”.