Director: Emir Ezwan
Year: 2020
Country: Malaysia
Alternate Titles: Soul
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Living in a remote jungle village, a young boy and his family find a feral girl alone in the woods and decide to bring her into their home, but shortly after doing so are afflicted with a series of strange incidents and tragedies that they trace to being the girls’ fault and must unravel her dark secret before more are harmed.
Review:
Frankly, this one turned out incredibly enjoyable. The biggest attribute present in the film is the impeccable atmosphere created around the remote village that plays up the isolation and superstition that runs rampant in the area. Visually, this is impressive with the evil, foreboding sense of the jungle around them and something living out there they better not mess with, which is helped along by the dark stories about what’s out in the woods and the series of accidents that befalls them soon after. This concept carries out the chilling notion that they’ve contracted something far more dangerous than they bargained for simply by being good samaritans. Since they ended up taking in the little girl from the jungle, their unknowing of the true danger awaiting them and falling into the supernatural through pure bad luck carries a lot of weight as things begin to spiral out of control. With these scenes taking place within the colorful jungle that takes up so much of the running time enhancing their isolation and bringing their surroundings into focus to play off of, there’s some great scenic work at play here.
On top of that, the film scores solidly with the more overt horror thrills. The initial opening of the body being buried in the mud and then ceremoniously stabbed at provides a chilling start to things much like when the family brings the girl into their home. Once that happens, the strange incidents around them begin to pile up, from the brutal slaughter of their animals to unexplained sudden onslaught of fevers to sightings of something lurking around their house which all gradually build the sense of unease and dread hinting at from before in especially chilling manners. With the supernatural events getting so bad that a local healer must be brought in, the sense of black magic rituals and ceremonies that are performed in a futile attempt to ward off the sinister forces at play not only fit into the groundwork of the universe but also add a fun dimension to the film. As the effects of the curse start to take hold and the events get bloodier, this picks up considerably, providing great action and some brutal effects-work that gives the film plenty to enjoy.
There really isn’t much to dislike with this one. The main issue some might find fault with would be the measured and relaxed pacing that some might find too slow. With the limited cast, no grand-scale set pieces, and a methodical build that continually puts events on-screen but done in a deliberate manner, the calculated approach could be taken to read as a slower-moving film than it really is. The constant scenes out walking in the jungle or working on ways to protect themselves from the mystical forces around the village do get old with everything playing out like repeated versions of the sequences which is another factor to this one not really feeling like a faster-moving effort. With all the real danger and secrets being revealed in the finale, this is a more realistic issue as the build-up doesn’t have much rhyme or reason until the very end of the film. The series of revelations and turns there provide this with much darker material to work with than expected but also means it’s almost over before finding anything out which could’ve been spread out more in the film. That is the main flaw here although the other issue might pop up.
Overview: ****.5/5
Graced with a stellar story, plenty of chilling aspects at play, and not too many detrimental elements, the film manages to get plenty of entertaining work that succeeds in giving the film a lot to like about it. Give this a shot if you're into these slow-building horror dramas or appreciative of this low-budget style of effort, while only those who prefer the fast-moving action-packed genre feature should heed caution.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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