might employ established conventions of genre and at the same time, challenges and rewrites them. Horror is a popular genre in the Malay(sian) cinema. As a popular genre, the Malaysian horror narrative has also progressed and shifted; from the Pontianak (woman vampire) representations, to the battle between tradition and modernity such as in the film Al-Hijab (The Partition; 2011, dir. Pierre Andre) and the blockbusters Khurafat (Superstition, 2011), Munafik (Hypocrite, 2016) and Munafik 2 (2018) (all directed by Syamsul Yusoff). For example in Khurafat, the use of witchcraft to seduce a woman (by the main character, Johan) portrays the binary characters of the villain and his confrontations with the monsters, which require the central male figure either to succumb to the supernatural power and temptations or to acknowledge the presence of supernatural beings (also in Al-Hijab). It is worth reiterating that the films’ relations to Islam are constructed in an apparently contradictory way: Islamic allusions to morality, and verses of the Quran are framed together with traditional Malay beliefs in sorcery, witch-hood, and superstitious practices. As a result, the narratives articulate moral stories, affirming Islamic principles condemning egotism, immodesty, greed, superstitious belief, and secular materialism. Therefore, Suria Hani in 2019 found out that apart from horror simply employing fear, the above-mentioned films also illustrate a linkage of moral narratives over traditional beliefs and practices as well as behaviours which are deemed to be immoral and contradict the teaching of Islam. Conclusion The above discussion exhibits a restricted cultural and religious view, since these films refer specifically to the traditional beliefs of only one ethnic group, the Malays, and Islam. Nevertheless, it is justified that the contextual setting also shapes the representation of Islam (and non-Islam) in Malay(sian) horror films, in this case by the specific history of Malaysia and its sociocultural background.
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