Director: Awi Suryadi
Year: 2025
Country: Indonesia
Alternate Titles: Pabrik Gula
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Arriving at a remote sugar mill, a group of workers tasked with going through the yearly crop harvest find the series of stories about the plantations' haunted nature coming true when demonic entities are let loose to attack and torment the workers, forcing them to stop the horrific events from happening.
Review:
Overall, there’s quite a lot to like about it. Among the better elements here is a rather strong central storyline that offers a chilling background factor to things while still allowing for a fun look at local culture. With the group arriving at the mill and splitting up to perform various tasks around the facility, the idea of them performing these tasks sets them up to explore the secrets within the plantation. The revelation that the site had multiple accidents in the past, including a catastrophic fire that killed multiple workers who were stuck inside a burning building and that their ghosts are now believed to haunt the grounds of the plantation which adds immensely to the environment of unease and uncertainty that everyone experiences leading into the revelations that come about in the final act. Unleashing hints of returning curses, black magic rituals, a special appeasement ceremony that must be completed so that demonic forces are unable to breach over into our world, and various other bits of supernatural influence, the interjection of this material offers a distinctly unique touch to the action. While initially giving off the idea of a haunting, there’s something enticing about delving into something different, which gives this a strong start.
That all provides a solid background for this one to delve into some strong supernatural sequences. Starting with the unease displayed once the group arrives at the plantation and is subjected to the conditions expected of them, there’s a slow increase in tension as they stay there, which helps the atmosphere tremendously. Some of the cheaper scenes, such as the deformed spirits appearing next to victims out of nowhere or eerie voices in the distance whispering, are cheap, but it’s the lengthier and more involved sequences that hold it up. A race to get back to the barracks house to avoid being stuck outside with ghosts is a great moment, as is the shamanistic appeasement ritual that goes wrong when the performers are unable to complete the process. This goes along nicely with the final act, where they turn to black magic ceremonies, offering encounters with demonic creatures of indiscriminate size continually appearing alongside more human-size creations. The darkness of the location, the chaos of everything unfolding at once, and the frenetic action depicted provide plenty of enjoyable factors, giving the film quite a lot to enjoy.
There are some issues here that hold it back. One of the main drawbacks is that there’s way too much going on, which tends to draw out the running time more than necessary. While it’s great to get to know the gang on the plantation, it takes way too much time before the one girl is revealed as the main target of the demons’ wrath since we’re looking at these other storylines taking up the main running time. Learning that the extra work done to establish everyone, pounding on the idea of everything happening at the plantation as accidents no one can explain is much too long to be as effective as it could’ve been at a shorter rate. That also extends to the finale, where the film throws in plenty of excessive elements to make for an extravagant scene but creates the kind of scattershot approach to possession, black magic, sacrificial rituals, and curses that it becomes hard to figure out what’s happening. It has too much happening to make the kind of impression it wanted, causing it to be overlong and bloated. These are the few factors that bring this one down.
Overview: ***.5/5
Featuring quite a lot to like about it while still getting let down at certain points, this one is a highly enjoyable genre effort that just misses out on the bigger parts of the genre due to these negatives. Viewers who enjoy this kind of supernatural fare or are generally curious about it will want to give this a chance, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
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