The Draft!, on Screambox

These college kids are sort of like Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” except they do not want their stories finished. That is because they are living in a horror movie screenplay. The more their screenwriter revises, the longer they live. Fortunately, the knowledge of their [un]reality gives them some power to survive in Yusron Fuadi’s beyond meta horror film, The Draft!, which premieres Tuesday on Screambox.

Five friends came to the spooky old villa owned by popular girl Ani’s parents, for reasons none of them really thought about. In fact, when later asked, nobody can remember much about the trip either. However, everyone immediately recognizes stereotypical elements of Indonesian horror movies, like the Dutch colonial cemetery and the decrepit old well out back.

Amir, the proudly nerdy aspiring filmmaker starts to figure out the meta-ness of their situation, very much in the tradition of Jamie Kennedy in Scream. Unfortunately, his suspicions will be confirmed, when Ami’s meathead boyfriend Budi resurrects from the dead, but with a new face, to satisfy a producer’s casting suggestions.

In a rather mixed blessing, their screenwriter is a talentless hack, who simply regurgitates one cliché after another. Amir and his friends much take care, because their speculations can be used against them. However, their suggestions for survival supplies, like a spectacularly well-stocked armory, will likely come true, because the screenwriter will think he thought of it himself.

The Draft is a wild ride that almost (but not quite) stops being horror as it encroaches into the tonal territory of some of the funnier Twilight Zone episodes. However, there are always fresh horrors lurking for the [mostly] four characters. Fuadi and co-screenwriters Richard James Halstead and B.W. Purba Negara incorporate several Indonesian cultural in-jokes, but genre fans who have kept up with Joko Anwar (whom is name-checked in The Draft) and the explosion of Indonesian horror should catch most of them.

The ensemble cast is also quite funny, once the audience understands the acting is supposed to be “bad” in the first act, because that is how the screenwriter envisions the prospective film. Winner Wijaya definitely makes a worthy spiritual successor to Kennedy’s Randy Meeks and Adhin Abdul Hakin makes an effective sad clown foil as Iwan, the socially awkward tough guy.

Frankly, the murky look suits the film. The meta-screenwriter might be incapable of originality, but Fuadi and company are quite clever. Although the premise has absurdist precedents, they take it in a fresh, new direction, while celebrating Indonesian horror tropes through satire. Highly recommended for fans of horror and meta-genre narratives, The Draft! starts streaming Tuesday (9/23) on Screambox.