Tales of the Lost and Found: Representations of Islam in Malaysian Horror Films

This paper analyses Malaysian horror films and how the films represent Islam in the realm of darkness and in various monstrous manifestations. Deemed as popular genre, two (2) Malay films of Al-Hijab (Partition, 2011) and Khurafat (The Superstition, 2011) were selected to identify the emergence of social and political ideology in Malaysian horror films and how these meaning associates to the representation of Islam/religion. Narrative analysis is employed to identify the films’ plot structure which includes the presentation of plot and characters, time, and space (mise-en-scène) on screen. Al-Hijab and Khurafat exemplify a straightforward structure of the male quest of desires (for fame, fortune, or women) that drift them away from the morality path. Throughout this quest, the ideological discussion occurs in the narrative, focuses on the dichotomies of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as well as ‘villains’ and ‘helpers’ which in overall highlight the ‘politics’ of the film.