A blend of styles and themes but ultimately a body horror, Tiger Stripes is incredibly worthwhile: lively, evocative and multifaceted. Like the best of horror, it strikes a solid balance between humane and fantastical: the crazy things which happen here, happen to people who are completely plausible and likeable. This is a daring and darkly comic feature debut from director and co-writer Amanda Nell Eu.
We meet our key characters at school: it’s a fairly conservative establishment, but the three girls Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal), Farah (Deena Ezral) and Mariam (Piqa) find time to play. Being modern kids, this includes an obligatory dance routine or two, though it seems that Zaffan is a little more, to use the euphemism, ‘developed’ than her friends – she’s taken to wearing a bra, and this is appealing to the others, who – fascinated – ask if they can try it on. The girls soon get in trouble for messing about in the toilets, though, and get disciplined for it – they’re told they have no respect for their school, their peers, or even for Malaysia itself. This falls on deaf ears. The girls are seniors (so either eleven or twelve years old) and they’re full of the place. The girls may have the odd spat, but it seems like they’re a tight-knit friendship group.
What we soon work out is that this is Zaffan enjoying the last day of her childhood. The little squabble she has with her mother for walking home in her underwear (as she’d soaked her school uniform by jumping in a river) is probably their last squabble as mother and child, by a few measures at least. This is drawn into sharp and inimitable relief that night when Zaffan gets her first period. This is such a relatable horror for girls: the body you thought you knew suddenly reveals that it has its own agenda, and it’s a messy, bloody agenda too. You get used to it, because it’s where you live, but it’s the end of your old, carefree life. There’ll be no walking home half-dressed from here on in. Add to that cultural and religious beliefs which stigmatise you for menstruation, and it all gets even tougher: when Zaffan’s mother announces, “You’re dirty now,” she perhaps means it figuratively, as well as literally.
Zaffan is now excluded from certain things: she can’t take part in prayers, for instance, and has to sit it out. Her best friends, who – for now – are free from this stigma, begin to treat her differently too, peering in at her with an outsider’s interest. But there are other physical changes happening to Zaffan. Her sensory ability is beginning to change; other, inexplicable things are happening to her body. She becomes increasingly isolated, but she’s a resourceful girl, and does her best to claw (!) her way back into the good graces of her classmates. The problems really start, however, when it seems that her afflictions are starting to affect her peers too…
First things first: Tiger Stripes brilliantly captures the icky, disconcerting aspects of menstruation, and it films everything, even the bits no one tells you about: the washing, the blood, what happens to the blood. The smell. It’s not exciting, and it most cases you don’t end up with superhuman abilities, but getting your period is a kind of body horror, right? You know the old, sexist joke about never trusting a creature that can bleed for five days and not die? It would be interesting to know what the Malaysian film censors cut from the film before its local release (leading the director to publicly disown the version of the film screened to home audiences) but I wouldn’t mind betting some of the more open, bloodier, intimate material got taken out. Similarly, the ways in which Zaffan begins to carve a new identity for herself, striking a balance between growing pains and new freedoms, may well have fallen foul of the censorial scissors. What a bloody shame, if so.
It’s to do Tiger Stripes no disservice to point out its similarities to Ginger Snaps, made a (staggering) quarter of a century ago. Even if Ginger Snaps is very Western, even if its animalism and its folklore revolves around a different animal, then the extension of body to body horror is similar. Tiger Stripes differs in how it interweaves other folkloric ideas and entities, sure, but the female body is the locus. In fact, Tiger Stripes is an immensely female-centred film. That may be a strange thing to say, given that it’s a Malaysian film and Malaysia is generally more sex-segregated than, say, Western countries, but its focus on female environments, friendships and themes is unstinting. Men are, by design or decision, quite out of the loop. Zaffan’s dad and his levels of inertia are a wonder to behold. Dr Rahim (Shaheizy Sam), the live-streaming faith healer, really shouldn’t have bothered.
All of this, and set against a backdrop of a lush, beautiful rural Malaysia, a country relatively unknown and unseen, from a Western perspective. There are great performances here: it’s impossible not to love the sparky, sympathetic Zaffan and even Farah at her worst is still a recognisable, contested kid whom you hope can sort things out. It’s also worth saying that, as much as the film is rich with subtext, that it works perfectly well as just a supernatural movie, just as Ginger Snaps – that title again – works perfectly well as a werewolf movie. There’s plenty to enjoy, and lots of wit, humour and charm too. Check it out.
Tiger Stripes (2023) hits select cinemas on June 14th and VOD on July 9th.