The Chanting Revisited (2018) User Reviews

Kuntilanak: Ruined by kids & comedy

[Platypuschow · 6/10 · 8 January 2019]

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

Good enough to be good, not enough to be great

[nitzanhavoc · 6/10 · 27 December 2018]

This has been my first experience with Indonesian horror, and while Kuntilanak is far from a masterpiece it made for quite an enjoyable watch. This is the sort of film for which one would have to lower their expectations and take the cultural differences into account. While obviously made for younger viewers (and yet containing certain features and scenes I personally wouldn't want my young ones to watch before their tweens) Kuntilanak has some pretty great qualities:

First, it feels like a nightmare, but an actual authentic one, "realistic", unlike many Hollywood attempts of portraying scenarios allegedly originating from nightmares that simply break immersion and suspense of disbelief.

Second, it takes normal everyday things from children's lives like a mischievous laughter and twists them, deforms them into a cacophony that combined with the dark eerie mood becomes truly terrifying.

Third, one would think the exaggerated comic reliefs presented by the children's infantile interactions with each other and with the other characters (made all the more apparent and dominant by changes in soundtrack and sound effects) would damage (if not completely ruin) the dark mood and fear factor, as well it should! But it somehow doesn't. On the contrary, it makes the following scary scenes that much more terrifying.

All in all, while I can't ignore the film's shortcomings (for instance, I went to sleep before the final 30 minutes and continues the next night, which isn't a very flattering thing to say about a film from the horror genre which is supposed to be suspenseful and compelling) I must admit that I enjoyed it quite a bit. Far from great, but definitely good (in my opinion) for anyone willing to momentarily change their standards and open their minds.

Uninspired

[StudleyDave · 3/10 · 14 June 2021]

It hits a low level of suspense, makes out it'll pick up, and then you realise that it doesn't change gears. The story is too plodding, and the writing is not the best. As for the kids, they do well, but they really needed stronger supporting cast members. A lack of tension and suspense make it feel slow.

It's like the Goonies and Oculous had a baby... and it sucked.

[malcomheavy · 3/10 · 24 October 2018]

This movie is about 5 kids discovering that their orphanage is haunted by a spooky ghost attached to a mirror that was brought to their residence.

The Tldr: A super cliche horror "comedy" about 5 kids attempting to prove and defeat the hindi demon that is haunting their orphanage. The antagonist is as cliche as it gets, acting is mediocre, and it's some weird Indonesian Goonies stuff. Skip it, and just watch the damn Goonies. And it's not funny BTW. They attempt to make it a "comedy" by using the same stupid cartoon sound effect 30+ times throughout the movie.

Now for a more detailed criticism. Let's start with the plot. As I have stated, it's basically a C-list Indonesian Goonies. Mixed with Oculous. Nothing fun or original about it. The antagonist, well, it's your typical "spooky woman" with awful CGI and it doesn't even attempt to look scary or original. The acting is terrible. Well... I don't speak Indonesian. But my buddy Aziz says it's pretty bad.

It was okay enough to barely keep my attention for it's short runtime, but if I were to ever watch this movie again, it would be far too soon.

I have been finding a lot of gems as far as foreign, Asian directed movies go, but this ain't it.

You'll laugh at it mid movie.

[shahrukhhasan-77197 · 3/10 · 21 October 2018]

They tried to bring in a little comedy and I dont mind that. They had the set, the ambience , the house everything was right. The actors were really bad and the direction of the movie had too much ghost in it and by defination it got less scary by the minute. The actors seemed to ve chill with the presence of the ghost. I mean youre supposed to run and scream. But the actirs were seemingly playing arounf trying to discuss the ghost. Like the direction of the movie is bad on another level.

Enjoyable rainy day horror fantasy.

[el7 · 7/10 · 14 August 2020]

Kuntilanak is about a haunted mirror that contains a ghost witch who kidnaps children and may or may not also consume them -- I won't go into the legend too much here, as that is very well explained in the movie itself. The movie starts with a cold open leading to a rather convoluted plot where a young woman is being entrusted to watch her aunt's foster children while she visits family overseas. This young woman has also entrusted her boyfriend to replace auntie's broken mirror, and this boyfriend happens to be the host of a popular ghost hunting show who is filming an episode in the house from the cold open. He brings this mirror home to his girlfriend and inadvertently rings the ghost witch's dinner bell. The rest of the movie concerns the foster children banding together once they realize that something supernatural is hunting them, and it isn't really the young woman who is the heroine of this movie, but Dinda, the oldest foster girl. The movie sets her up nicely to be both the first one hunted and the one upon whom all depends, so props for the subtle character building there. There's a lot of Goonies type 'cute kids in peril' humor and misadventure, and there are also some scenes way too creepy to want any kids under 13 to be watching. There are also quite a few annoying jump scares, especially in the beginning, but by the end there's enough genuine scares to make up for that. Fans of grim supernatural horror probably won't care much for this one, and it's too scary to show the younger kids who otherwise might have liked a Halloween type movie with a kid cast. This might actually be a good choice for junior high sleepovers, or for rainy afternoons when you're stuck indoors folding laundry.

Dear Rizal...

[wisnuhyudhanto · 1/10 · 20 October 2018]

Dear Rizal Mantovani, if you read this, and I hope you read this. Please stop making horror movie - especially the one with respected urban legend - stupid.

I know this movie came out before Pengabdi Setan, but now at least you can learn from it. Horror movie is NOT a music video. We don't need your pretty scene, we don't need a genius angle, we don't need beautiful cinematography. All we need is good storyline, good acting and script.

Seems you only depend on your shocking sound effect and spooky background music while there is nothing scary going on, on the scene. Are those your ultimate weapons? Well I'll tell you; Those kinds of jumpscare factors are sux. Doesn't work anymore. "Basi!"

Please be more creative with your storyline and don't underestimate your audience. This is for y'all Indonesian Horror Movie Director wannabe.

Hope your next one will be better. Thanks.

Scary

[emmajaynee42 · 7/10 · 25 July 2019]

At the scary scenes there was jumpy music which was a little annoying, the film is quite suspensful throughout.

The music at the joke scenes was odd.

I thought the storyline was quite new and unique. So it is worth a watch, if you like horror movies.

You gotta be kidding me !!!

[odhot-odhot · 2/10 · 19 June 2018]

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

Creepy movie

[raypalomarez-47522 · 10/10 · 3 November 2018]

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.

Not bad...

[choicez · 7/10 · 8 April 2019]

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

Another fail attempt of horror movies trying to become mainstream.

[danishhenry · 1/10 · 18 October 2018]

You'll be wasting at least good 2 hours of your life watching this messy, cluttered, confusing story that they would dare call it a film.

Let me start with how confuse this film is. The initial point of this film was to entertain us, the audience and to leave us with fearful feelings and thoughts. But it did the complete opposite. There are three major factors as to why this film became unbelievably a failure. The music and what they try to make us feel, we going to categories this as "Convey". Let's begin, with Music. Majority of the scenes throughout this film, the music often doesn't match with the mise-en-scene. The music is overpowered with the actions that it's being illustrated in the screen. The non diegetic noise are imbalance with the sounds that's being displayed on the screen. As the audience, we felt distracted and doesn't allow us to give ourselves up into the scene. With the overhyped music being played, it distracted us, again, with that the camera is trying to show. A famous saying "too much something is not good". The director should have taken an account and apply into its next film.

Furthermore, the music often doesn't match with the pace of the edit, and the atmosphere of the whole scene. It's uncanny how bad the choice of music is.

My next point is my second factor which is the subject of Convey. What I meant by 'convey' is what the camera and the whole scene is trying to say. Let me elaborate. The intentions, ideas, themes, meanings and points often doesn't correlate with what the screen is displaying and instead of leaving us with the feeling of frightened, it left us with the thought "that was weird". And if the filmmaker had made us the audience felt this way, he had ultimately failed his movie.

The third and final factors of what made this film worse then the green lantern film is the characters. My god, the characters that being portrayed in this film are absolutely disgustingly bad. The characters doesn't resemble any of normal behaviour of typical kids in our society. Yes kids are ought to be curious and adventurous, but this film had portrayed the kids to be unbelievably courages, strong minded and ignorant. Its a total joke with how the director has directed the kid to be played in this film. It shows the unrealistic absence of the characters being played and ultimately destroyed the entire film. 5 kids took down a ghost? Really? With no help of an adult? Was this film was to liberate the idea of kids should be more dependant and more strong minded? If it was. Please don't do it again. A great film should drawn us in by the ideas, mise-en-scene, sounds, characters and the narrative. A story can be unrealistic as long as the narrative and characters makes sense to the audience.

I have a lot more to say about how bad this film is. But let me summarise my main points as to why you should not waste your time on this film.

KUNTILANAK is another cheapskate, knocked off an typical Hollywood American film. It had implemented many conventional American ideas, character trades and choice of sounds that ultimately became a total blue balls film. KUNTILANAK is no more than just overhyped, overplayed loud music that suppose to scare the audience away, but did the opposite.

Schlock is fun. This is a trash fire.

[mbessetteart · 1/10 · 10 January 2021]

This thing is the very definition of tonal dissonance. It can't figure out if it wants to be horror or a kids movie. Somehow it it's not even in the middle it just swings back and forth wildly from scene to scene. Between cleche jump scares and cartoonishly bad comedy sound effects. The cartoon sound effects made me physically cringe. The child acting is impressively bad. I can't say much more. It's not fun bad. It's just a trash fire in Detroit. Ignore it.

Solid and highly enjoyable Indonesian ghost movie

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 9/10 · 22 January 2019]

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.

Kids did a wonderful job

[haroonoptimist-27309 · 10/10 · 23 July 2022]

The movie was executed well. Slow story line gradually gaining pace. Dinda will get 10 stars from me. Although a couple of stupid scenes but overall it was a cute horror movie. Kids did a gr8 job.

A masterpiece

[yangfanbmn · 10/10 · 6 August 2019]

I must admit that this is my first encounter with Indonesian horror, and if what odhot-odhot says is true, this is the beginning of a journey. The movie develops the theme of belief, depression and existential crises shaped like ghosts. Only those who can see ghosts in everyday life can cement the right beliefs and send the demons back to where they belong.