Kuntilanak (2018) Reviews

• Kuntilanak: Ruined by kids & comedy

  Platypuschow2019-01-08

  I've been watching a fair bit of Indonesian cinema lately and truth be told I kind of like what I see and for the most part that applies to Kuntilanak. It tells the story of a group of children who are forced to battle a mysterious creature that preys on the young and steals them away. The opening sequence immediately got my attention, it was excellent. For this reason I had high hopes, but sadly a couple of things stopped the film from really meeting its potential. First of all the comedy. If the film isn't an intentional horror comedy then for the most part comedy should be kept clear or a horror, it takes away the fear element and just stops you taking the whole thing seriously. Second the kids, children are the leads of the film which is never good. Five of them leading in a film of this type? Imagine if you merged The Ring (2002) with the Goonies (1985) and that is basically what you have here. Kuntilanak's creature effects are great, they adopt the traditional Asian style of scary black haired undead lady perfectly and for that reason this should have been a scary film. The method of which they use the scares also are very good, but they're sadly watered down by the kids. Goofy child actors running away from something that is actually scary, it just didn't work for me. If they'd played this whole thing serious, added some actual threat to the kids or better yet not have kids at all then this film would have been fantastic. Moral of the story, kids suck. The Good: Incredible opening A lot of potential Creature looks great Awesome scares The Bad: Goofy sound effects Poor cgi Annoying children Inconsistent tone

• Creepy movie

  raypalomarez-475222018-11-03

  This movie is clearly a seven or eight but I gave it a 10 for all the cinematic FX . Thought the took awhile for movie to take off. When the mother of the kids leaving, felt like it took an hour for her to leave. The kids did a really good acting job. This is way better than the new 2018 Halloween movie, and it's getting better reviews. Another down side is ready subtitles . You definitely need to be the judge, and look at the actual movie as a whole and compare it to one of your favorite scary movies, look at how picture and effect are shot.

• You gotta be kidding me !!!

  odhot-odhot2018-06-19

  If you want to make a kids movie, use better theme instead of ghost. So many scenes taken from other movies, i mean please grow up and be more creative instead. Indonesian ghost stories are always good but please do not use western style of horror effect on Indonesian ghosts story. Research more and return to indonesian style instead of James Wan's style. This is fully a good critics for you mr Rizal Mantovani, i know you're a good filmmaker

• Not bad...

  choicez2019-04-08

  Child actors pretty good, especially the girl who plays Dinda!

• Solid and highly enjoyable Indonesian ghost movie

  kannibalcorpsegrinder2019-01-22

  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. 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 are 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 offers up a great starting point to this one before getting the stellar ghostly haunting. 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. The scene of the young daughter being tormented by the disembodied voice whispering out to her and drawing her through the house, a truly freaky encounter about the girl wandering through the house and seeing the ghost sitting at the TV screen 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. 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 set piece. 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 end this on a high note due to the chilling scenes here. 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 after seeing how they're already freaked out are somewhat normal, later scenes of the group picking on each other 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. Rated Unrated/PG-13: Language, Violence and themes of children-in-jeopardy.