The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has said that they are very concerned about the content of a new Indonesian horror flick, titled "Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan" ("The Menstruating Puncak Ghost"), which opens in cinemas on Thursday, and have banned it for Muslims.
But it is not the reference to menstruation that is troubling the clerics. Instead, they have condemned the film for being pornographic and violent.
"The movie contains porn, which can trigger lust, and based on our research, it also contains violence," Amirsyah Tambunan from the MUI told Kompas.com.
He said that the MUI had called on the Film Censorship Board (LSF) to not give the movie the green light for screening.
"We urge LSF to use its power to stop the movie from being screened because it could damage the nation's morale. So far, we don't know if it has passed censorship or not, but the movie is violating pornography norms. It is okay to have freedom of expression, but without violating the norms (of decency)," he said.
Meanwhile, K2K, the production house behind the movie, said that they had been informed about the MUI's statement.
"We heard about the MUI (statement) and we had received a notice from MUI banning the movie "Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan." The movie will play soon in cinemas, but now we have to wait for confirmation if it will be allowed to show in cinemas," said KK Deeraj from K2K.
However, Deeraj said they would not give up easily because the movie had already been passed by the censorship board.
"I will discuss it with LSF because the movie had passed censorship. If it is banned, we will be sad and confused because we had spent a lot of money making it," he said.
"Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan" stars actress Andi Soraya and dangdut singing group Trio Macan. The movie's trailer, available on Youtube, shows steamy content, including one topless scene performed by Andi. Nudity is rare in most Indonesian films.
"I admit that this movie has lots of vulgar scenes, but I decided to do this role because the movie's story is different from other horror movies," Andi told Kompas.com last week.