Director: Joko Anwar
Year: 2024
Country: Indonesia
Alternate Titles: Siksa Kubur
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After losing her parents as a kid, a woman grows into being a resentful adult, hoping to find a way to make the culprit suffer for the way he affected her life, and after learning of a special aspect of their religion that could impact him, she sets out to prove it however she can.
Review:
For the most part, this one was a rather likable feature. One of the better aspects of the film is the engaging setup that sets everything in motion with an intriguing twist. Taking an unusual approach where the notion of her wavering faith continually puts her at odds with those around her following what happened to her and her brother as kids, this gives off the kind of opening setup where her morals and ethics are put into question through genuinely natural circumstances that create an intriguing main character to follow. With the way this is painted as being a psychological issue with the way she keeps reliving the incident that killed her parents when she was a child, the exploits of this one are painted to a point of being more about the determination of proving the stories she hears about what happens in a grave following a person’s death as something she needs closure on to see the person who caused her so much grief receive the proper treatment their actions deserve. It’s an immensely effective setup that not only sets her up with this kind of intriguing background, but the gradual reveal of what happens following a person’s death is handled quite well.
This is where everything turns into a more full-throated genre picture, as everything on display lends itself to spelling out what the final resolution of her actions is building to. Featuring her determination to find someone worthy enough of going through the process of finding the perfect person to set up whether or not the process is real with her work taking care of the sleazy elder gentleman at his home and nicely augmented by her various dreams about what will happen once she gets him into the grave, this is all geared up for the final few minutes with her descending into the underground catacombs and witnessing the torture taking place for herself. The confined setting, lack of awareness of her surroundings, and the wholesale sense of terror emitted by the disembodied voice carrying out the existential questions of the afterlife for the victim to answer provide a fantastic means of getting everything resolved, especially with the graphic carnage doled out to the individual, as the brutal, bloody sequence showing the torture that takes place is immensely fascinating. These all manage to provide this one with quite a lot to like that hold it up quite nicely.
There are a few issues here that bring this one down. One of the main drawbacks here is the immensely sluggish and overlong running time that causes this to be way too long before the violence happens. There’s way too much time here involving a near two-hour running time featuring the nurse going through her day-to-day life and activities while at the nursing facility that this takes place in, which can make this a struggle to get through, wandering around far too much with the sleazy elder man rather than going for more intense genre setpieces. With the setup being about how she’s being duplicitous in her intentions and trying to get him to a point where he’s an appropriate sacrifice to try the special torture in the grave, it runs itself into the ground, dragging us through multiple scenes that have already spelled out what’s going on that don’t need to be there. These also manage to hold back the other big genre setpieces for only a few somewhat solid parts, but are more noticeable in terms of quantity than anything as well as quality, with the few scenes being fun enough but not quite as high as some of the other stuff out there, holding this one back somewhat.
Overview: ****/5
A watchable if somewhat problematic genre effort, this one is fun for what it is and manages some incredibly worthwhile factors that hold it up over a few issues which are impactful enough to keep it from the upper echelon of the genre. Those with an interest in this approach, who don’t mind the issues here, or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like, while most others might want to heed caution.
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