★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Amanda Nell Eu
Malaysian horror feature TIGER STRIPES offers a unique take on coming-of-rage menstrual body change horror.
Horror films about girls experiencing transformations resulting from their first menstrual cycles are plentiful, and one of the latest entries is the Malaysian feature Tiger Stripes (2023). Director Amanda Nell Eu, working from a screenplay that she cowrote with Sam Haillay, combines both body horror and creature feature elements.
Eleven-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal in a fine debut) is the first girl at her school to get her period. Although her friends and classmates are envious of the fact that this prohibits Zaffan from attending prayers at school, they ostracize her with insults about her smelling bad and superstitions about how demons will lick her blood.
The spunky Zaffan is introduced as a free spirit, dancing in TikTok videos and showing off her bra to her friends. Physical changes set in as her period continues, and Zaffan becomes increasingly defiant toward her peers and family members. An exorcist with social media savvy attempts to free Zaffan from demons, but gets more than he bargained for, resulting in one of the film’s most satisfying scenes.
Tiger Stripes serves up a new vision of first-period horror as it is infused with cultural and religious aspects unique to its location. Eu does solid work at the helm and gets wonderful performances from her young cast members, who include Deena Ezral and Piqa as her two closest friends who are both attracted and repulsed by Zaffan’s being the first student at their school to go through menstruation.
The film leaves some questions open, though — for example, the symbolism of a woman in the trees who only some girls can see may be familiar to Malaysian viewers, but others could do with more background about this — and the ending is a bit of a head scratcher. Overall, though, Tiger Stripes is a unique effort and an intriguing feature debut from a promising new directorial talent.
Review by Joseph Perry
