Fantastic Fest 2024: ‘The Draft!’ aims for super meta but lacks real punch

Characters becoming trapped in a horror movie is not a new conceit. Films like Final Girls (2015) and this year’s Dead Teenagers both see their protagonists ensnared within the confines of a horror premise. Then, there are the likes of Demons (1985) and Midnight Movie (2008) that blur the lines between reality and fiction. In The Draft!, playing this year’s Fantastic Fest, director Yusron Fuadi leans into this concept for a super-meta foray about a group of 20-somethings who learn they are trapped inside a writer’s horror movie draft. Far more clever on paper, the film doesn’t possess the punch or spirit to stand out or warrant repeat viewings. It starts with a roar and ends with a whimper.

Five youths — Budi (Haydar Salishz), Iwan (Adhin Abdul Hakim), Wati (Anastasia Herzigova), Ani (Putri Anggie), and Amir (Winner Wijaya) — drive out to an old, secluded villa in the countryside for the weekend. Upon arrival, they meet Mang Dadang (Ernanta Kusuma), the property’s caretaker, and quickly settle into their rooms. Within the first 24 hours, bodies mysteriously turn up cold and dead without any real rhyme or reason. The unnamed writer scribbles down ideas and struggles to come up with a concrete plot line. It’s a mess tangled with half-baked notions about what makes a horror movie. Such a nonsensical approach causes ruptures in the characters’ sense of time and place.

Once the group realizes they’re just fictional characters trapped inside a draft, they lament how lazy the writer is. The script fails to gain steam from very little backstory and convoluted plot points, petering out every which way. When the pages change, the characters must contend with an ever-evolving storyline and fresh dangers that seek to rip them to shreds.

As time unravels in the real world, the characters appear unchanged and left to be nothing more than carcasses for the writer’s jumbled pleasures. He doesn’t know what he wants or desires from the story, so the pieces scatter around with undercooked dialogue and plot revelations that feel unearned. Fuadi plays with these tidbits, toying with the viewer and enticing them to relish in the joyride.

But there’s little joy or fun to be had. The Draft! isn’t silly enough for camp and doesn’t take itself seriously enough for a dark and twisted horror movie. It sits somewhere in between, a decision that drains it completely of any bite or gravitas. Yusron Fuadi’s direction is smart and tightly wound, and the cinematography (courtesy of Mandella Majid) is admirable (but terribly uninspired). The filmmaking fragments are present yet don’t fit together properly to make for a thrilling time.

The Draft! looks good on paper, much like the writer’s attempts at a draft, but the execution doesn’t live up to the many ideas that have been tossed into a blender. As the film leaps into the third act, there’s little payoff, and the story ends without any satisfying resolution. For all its outlandish concepts, which include a horde of zombies, The Draft! simply loses a sense of direction and could have worked with additional rewrites. Billed as a horror/comedy, it isn’t funny enough to be a comedy and not terrifying enough to be horror. It loses itself somewhere in creative purgatory, and that’s just downright unfortunate.

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