For the past decade, Indonesian filmmakers have delivered a steady stream of endlessly rewatchable horror movies and action flicks. So, no matter how many films I have to cover in a week, I always make time for the latest Indonesian genre flick.
Director Kimo Stamboel first landed on my radar at TIFF 2016 when his balls-to-the-wall action film Headshot electrified Midnight Madness audiences. Then, in 2019, Stamboel’s joyfully depraved supernatural horror movie The Queen of Black Magic solidified his place on my filmmakers-to-watch list.
Stamboel’s latest work, Dancing Village: The Curse Begins (Badarawuhi di Desa Penari), serves as the bloodcurdling prequel to the 2022 Indonesian hit, KKN: Curse of the Dancing Village (KKN di Desa Penarii).
Given KKN’s status as Indonesia’s highest-grossing film of all time, The Curse Begins arrives with sky-high expectations from die-hard fans. Fortunately for genre movie lovers, Stamboel’s track record makes him an ideal candidate to take the reins of this burgeoning horror series.
WHAT’S DANCING VILLAGE: THE CURSE BEGINS ABOUT?
The story follows Mila (Maudy Effrosina), a young woman whose mother falls ill with a mysterious sickness. A shaman tells Mila that she may lift her mother’s affliction by collecting a precious bangle and returning it to an elder in a remote village. Mila, her cousin Yuda (Jourdy Pranata) and their two friends Jito (M. Iqbal Sulaiman) and Arya (Ardit Erwandha) venture deep into the forest to bring back the bracelet.
The hopeful expedition takes a sinister turn.
It turns out the village elder is dead, and the person Mila needs to speak with in their place, Mbah Buyut (Diding Boneng), is out of town for a few days.
As the friends await Mbah Buyut’s return, they encounter a series of creepy events, including visits from Badarawuhi (Aulia Sarah), a malevolent supernatural entity with a taste for cursing innocent souls. Mila and her friends must use their wits to thwart Badarawuhi, or risk falling victim to her dancing curse.
WHAT DOES AND DOESN’T WORK?
The Curse Begins isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s an intense horror-thriller laden with grotesque imagery; body horror, bile-spewing ghouls, and maggot-infested animal corpses. But it’s the film’s foreboding atmosphere that may be too much for you to take.
Right from its opening prologue, Stamboel masterfully crafts an unrelenting sense of dread that hangs over every scene like rumbling storm clouds. It’s a bleak feeling that gets under your skin and gnaws away at you, even after the credits roll.
The Curse Begins is unsettling, but I never found the supernatural elements creepy. It evoked plenty of anxious feelings in me, but not in the typical spooky horror movie kind of way. It’s closer to the feeling of stress I feel watching Tom Cruise dive-bomb his motorcycle off the side of a mountain.
Stamboel adeptly ratchets up the tension until you feel like your stomach is in knots, but he doesn’t always pay it off in a satisfying shock or scare. It’s akin to someone telling a joke with a brilliant setup and a weak punchline. As a result, I spent two hours waiting for a signature moment that never arrived.
Although The Curse Begins is an intense watch, it doesn’t deliver the type of nail-biting scares that etch themself into your brain. The film lacks the standout white-knuckle setpieces seen in films like Satan’s Slaves and Evil Dead Rise.
SHOULD I WATCH KKN FIRST?
The Curse Begins marks the first time I’ve watched a prequel before its predecessor and I believe that diminished how much I enjoyed the film. Someone could watch The Phantom Menace before A New Hope and the story would make sense. But while watching The Curse Begins, I understood what was happening plot-wise, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something was missing.
I don’t find Badarawuhi at all compelling. And I suspect KKN’s big bad is largely responsible for the film’s wild success. I suspect KKN does a better job of giving viewers a reason to fear or even care about Badarawuhi. But even if it does, that sense of menace doesn’t carry over to this film. Unlike the great horror movie villains, her presence feels less imposing the more time she spends on the screen. The character is never as intriguing as the silent Entity in It Follows or as terrifying as Bathsheba in The Conjuring.
FINAL THOUGHTS
More than once I found myself looking at the clock, ready for the credits to hit. At two hours long, the narrative loses momentum in the third act. This film would pack more punch clocking in at a lean 100 minutes.
I went into this screening excited to dive into a new horror series, and can’t help but feel somewhat let down. I appreciate The Curse Begins’ nerve-racking atmosphere, eerie mythology, and stomach-churning visuals. But I have zero interest in spending two more hours in this world and seeing how this story unfolds in KKN.
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