Director: Rizal Mantovani
Year: 2018
Country: Indonesia
Alternate Titles: Kuntilanak: Ghost in the Mirror
Genre: Ghosts
Plot:
Staying together for a few weeks, a group of kids looking after their adoptive grandmother's house finds that they have been selected for a special reality show exploring a house cursed by a kuntilanak ghost and has now come looking for them like others in the past and must put a stop to it.
Review:
This was an overall enjoyable enough entry. One of the strongest aspects of this one is the fact that the opening setup and rationale for the haunting is handled incredibly well here. Introduced quickly to the trauma of the family getting through the accident that has claimed the mother and his guilt over the incident, the scene of him attempting to honor her memory by drawing the picture of her which starts in all the fantastic supernatural action around the room with the objects moving by themselves while he's drawing or the different objects reacting to his presence unknowingly all offers up a great starting point to this one before getting the stellar ghostly haunting. The scene of the ghost mother appearing before him and then after comforting him the chilling realization sets in and the truly fun idea of his disappearance sets this on it's way with a chilling start. Drawing on this with the later scenes of the reporter in the fabled house recounting the legend or the children talking to each other about the incidents between them which has drawn the ghost to them all give this a great lead-in of the grief they've experienced priming them for contact with the entity.
This early build-up is enhanced significantly by the slew of especially creepy and enjoyable elements afterward depicting all manner of creepy elements. The scene of the young daughter being tormented by the disembodied voice whispering out to her and drawing her through the house to the mirror itself and later seeing the figure peering around the corner at her, a truly freaky encounter about the girl wandering through the house and seeing the ghost sitting at the TV screen before singing a creepy nursery rhyme and attacking her or the dreams she has about the clawing noises in the walls of their room all manage to bring out some rather effective scares that serve the point of drawing their attention to the ghosts' presence in their lives as they set out to investigate the matter themselves when no one else will believe them. That they learn to bond together through this investigation and become a tighter group as a result of these scenes is an exceptionally fine choice and done rather well in here.
This offers the basis for all the intensely creepy ghostly confrontations throughout here. The attack in the bedroom where the kids are sleeping and the being attempts to enter their room before being pushed out that later reveals no one was there all along emerges as a fine setpiece which has plenty of intensity with the ghost getting further through the door and the desperation to close it with the help of the others who are unresponsive to the situation sleeping the entire time. Once it gets to the fabled house, the attacks are nonstop with the friendly ghost boy showing up to the group at various places around the house to draw their focus towards helping him which all starts up rather frightening encounters with the vengeful ghost coming out to stop him, resulting in the encounter with the statues in the den or the chase through the hallway. The gripping finale, effectively utilizing the knowledge they found earlier to great effect, offers up plenty of action, thrills and some clever scenes of them outsmarting the ghost to really ends this on a high-note due to the chilling scenes here of the ghost getting to the kids throughout the house and their frenzied quest to stop it in the beings' own world.
While it does have a lot to like, there are some flaws here. One of the main issues is the fact that the comedy here is somewhat forced and at times feels odd in the context of the scene. While the early scenes featuring them attempting to scare each other by jumping out of the hallways or sneaking up behind each other after seeing how they're already freaked out are somewhat normal, later scenes of the group picking on each other for being into these creepy concepts or wanting to go after the ghost make no sense after having bonded together and just come off as lame. It's fine at first but the later scenes keeping it going are where it falls flat overall leading into a confused tone overall. The other real issue with this one is the overlong setup it takes to get the kids into the house, basically bringing the show into the film around the halfway point which is fine for all the early scene gets them together to prepare for the finale but it still makes the film a bit too long due to some of the early scenes taking up the time it could've used to have more action in the ghosts' lair. However, these aren't really enough to lower it all that much.
Overview: ****1/2/5
Despite a few minor areas that aren't as detrimental as they could be and plenty of far more enjoyable work elsewhere throughout here, this emerges as a wholly thrilling and enjoyable effort. Give this a shot if you're a fan of these type of supernatural-heavy efforts, curious about the country's genre output or about the film in general, while those with an aversion to subtitles or are generally tired of such efforts should heed caution here.
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