I’ve often heard whispers of macabre accounts stemming from Malay and Indonesian folklore – which share some overlaps in supernatural beliefs – as told to me by friends and family alike. Perhaps it’s just sheer proximity to these Southeast Asian cultures that makes these spooks feel more intimate and corporeal, but the spirits in these tales are, to me, more eerie than most garden-variety ghouls. Take, for instance, how even the mere whiff of the frangipani flower can unnerve me, as it’s a scent commonly associated with the pontianak>, the vengeful spirit of a pregnant woman who was violently murdered.
In the Indonesian horror game DreadOut 2, these spectres are known as kuntilanak> (as they’re referred to in Indonesia). These long-haired, howling spooks are every bit as vicious and frightful as I had imagined them to be, and plenty more such Indonesian ghosts lurk in the city you’ll spend the bulk of your time in in DreadOut 2.
