Multiple choice question. Let’s say you’re in love with someone that you shouldn’t be, and you’re told, from many people, that it’s not a relationship you should pursue.
Do you:
a) give up and move on, or
b) cast some black magic to win him over?
If you answered with “b”, then congratulations you are the main character of this movie.
And also congratulations, you make terrible life choices.
Based on the popular Turkish film franchise “Siccin”, the writer of some of the most popular Indonesian horror films of the last few years, Lele Laila (KKN, Ivanna, Qorin), has tried to her hand, yet again, at mixing religion, or in this case anti-religion, with black magic and a strong female lead.
Only this time, she missed the mark by a long margin.
PLOT
A young woman visits a shaman who tells her to stay about from the man she is madly in love with. 12 years later and that man is married with a disabled daughter, and she is pregnant with his illegitimate child.
After she miscarries, she visits the shaman again to cast a spell on his wife that will cause her entire bloodline to be dead in five days.
Except, the wrong people start to die.
ABOUT THE FILM
This was a hyped film, and I’ll be honest, this was something that I really wanted to watch when I first saw the trailer. But hype always let’s me down, as it’s done again in this situation.
Firstly, for a movie that should have a strong female lead, she’s rather pathetic. Fully lovelorn and dramatically obsessive, she’s supposed to be a woman-scorned character, but instead comes across rather trashy. There is a reason she is always shown in full make-up with her hair done nicely - the filmmaker wants you to know she is a homewrecker and not a character you should sympathize with.
Which leads to the next problem, who do we sympathize with? Not the husband, as he is a jerk, so then it must be the wife who knows her husband is unfaithful but is too damn afraid to say anything. But I can’t find any way to sympathize with such a weak character.
When the movie tries to do something creepy, at least it gets that right. The hallucination scenes are good, as are some of the gory deaths. But those moments are too little and they come too late. At least it has this nice haunting tune that played frequently throughout the film to keep up the tension.
And then there is the religion. Non-stop religious talk that, in my opinion, overstayed it’s welcome even before it began. I know the best way to defeat a Djinn, or any kind of evil spirit, is a healthy exorcism, but we don’t need a lecture about praying and turning up to church/mosque to come with it.
What are my overall thoughts?
It’s an okay film, but it’s nothing remarkable. I haven’t seen the Turkish original, but I know it’s 20 minutes shorter and has spawned a ridiculous number of sequels.
I can’t see this movie being as popular as that.
MOVIE DETAILS
Genre Horror
Director Hadrah Daeng Ratu
Starring Ibrahim Risyad, Anggika Bölsterli, Delia Husein
Original Title Sijjin
Alternative Title Siccin (Turkish original)
Country of Origin Indonesia
Release Date 9 November 2023
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