Director: Ook Budiyono
Year: 2020
Country: Indonesian
Alternate Titles: Janin
Genre: Ghosts
Plot:
In the early stages of pregnancy, a young mother and her husband try to carry on with their lives as normal but are unnerved when she believes are spirits haunting her and her baby, but when they discover the reason behind the hauntings and who’s really after her try whatever they can to stop it from harming her.
Review:
There was a surprising amount of positives in this one. The film works best with the enjoyable psychological mind-games that are played. Preying on the fear all women who become pregnant experience where everything that happens around the house is an unknown entity out to get the baby or drive her insane, this one falls into that aspect rather well. Given that she obviously senses something is off about the house as her intuition tells her to check something that isn’t there or hearing voices coming where they shouldn’t, this one creates a successful atmosphere early on that denotes something isn’t right. As they keep intensifying and the common reaction is to calm her down simply for the sake of the baby, the paranoia it exploits offers up a lot to like as this brings us firmly onto her side to get to the bottom of what’s happened at what should be the happiest time of her life.
Moreover, the change into much more intense antics afterwards gives a different energy and appeal to the film. Focusing on the fact that she believes she’s going crazy seeing ghosts and spirits around the house or having objects disappear and reappear in different places, her mindset is altered quite nicely into a state of distrust that ends up escalating her paranoia. Not knowing whether to trust whether the ghostly voices coming from the crib are really there or if the ghosts are just hallucinations makes sense that she would turn to the medium for advice on the subject, and it’s only when he begins to experience strange supernatural incidents that it comes full circle to believing her which only adds to the general unease featured throughout the film. The change to getting him to believe also means the ghost attacks are far more intense and frequent, leading to the revelation about the purpose behind them and leads to the thrilling finale to stop her. The spirit attacks are brutal, energetic and quite chilling as a result, giving the film plenty to enjoy as a result.
This one does have some minor issues. The main problem is that so much of the film is reliant on the tired trope of the disbelieving husband not coming around to what’s going on until way too late in the proceedings. As this makes sense to add to the growing suspense being built up, it never ends up coming across as anything other than gaslighting, whether it’s intentional or not. As the disbelief and skepticism of the supernatural happening to the wife is always featured in these films, the use of it in the film comes off the same way intended or not. Granted, he does come around but it’s only after several incidents have happened to him personally rather than believing it from the start and it feels cliched as a result. Some of the effects-work here is slightly spotty at times as well, sometimes having the effect of drawing the viewer out of the scene or lessening the suspense instead. However, these issues are really all that stand out against the film.
Overview: ****/5
A wholly enjoyable and entertaining effort, this one offers some fun ghost attacks and plenty of psychological intrigue even if there’s a bit of reliance on clichés and tropes is the one main issue against it. It’s worth a watch for those looking for a quick, easy-going ghost story or generally curious about the country’s efforts to try out this particular trope.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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