Warning: This article contains mentions of child and infant death, gore and violence, and mild spoilers for Impetigore.

In an entirely on-brand move, I ditched the Christmas movies this year. I’ll spare you all the reasons for why my spirit’s been rather unceremoniously squelched since most of us are there already, no? However, time off did give me time to make some headway on my other film-watching backlogs. Namely (in this case) with Joko Anwar’s cleverly crafted Impetigore. The film is Indonesia’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, and with good reason. Pull up a chair and let’s dive into why shall we?

Impetigore strikes a strong note from the get-go. A persistent bee in my bonnet when it comes to western horror is the bizarre need to spend half an hour warming me up. This is usually at the expense of the actual horror. You know, the genre stuff that I pressed play for.

Impetigore, on the other hand, wastes no time getting to the mystery-horror at its heart. It manages to introduce the protagonist, get me invested in her, and cut through to introducing the tension within about five minutes. It’s a very smart choice, one that doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence and gets us hooked, while still leaving the bulk of the movie to get into the meat of things. As a result, the heart of the film doesn’t feel undercooked.

The atmosphere is integral to Impetigore‘s functioning, and the production team that put the film together showed real talent here. Between the soundtrack, set pieces, and lighting, the film has a fairytale-like sensibility. A sensibility that especially ramps up once Maya returns to her parents’ village.

I have a real fondness for folk horror which probably doesn’t surprise anyone. Impetigore leans into some of the best parts of the genre while treading its own path and not reproducing a dozen (white, Western) films. Particularly, the intermingling of present-day horror-fairytale and past-tense wayang kulit shadow puppets makes for gorgeous visuals. It maintains the beating heart of the film’s cultural backdrop and social sensibility throughout.

Equally, Impetigore draws from haunted house fare and ghost stories. However, it largely swaps out jump scares and frenetic pacing for a slower simmer that proves effectively unsettling while giving more depth to the story than is sometimes present in similar genre pieces. This choice is valuable and even necessary in what is ultimately a supernaturally-assisted story about grief, loss, and inherited guilt.

That said, I had the benefit of knowing about the pace of the film before watching it. This slower pace might feel like a drag for viewers anticipating less of a folkloric murder-mystery and more of a spiritually inflected horror that moves at a faster clip.

These quieter sequences unpacking what is (at its core) a very human conflict are aided by an impressive cast. While Maya (Tara Basro), Dini (Marissa Anita), and Saptadi (Ario Bayu) are rightly positioned as the film’s core characters, even secondary and minor actors displayed impressive caliber. Each of them was able to convey more subtle, complex emotions as needed. They were also able to embrace and dive into some of the film’s more dramatic turns, carrying forth startling violence, trembling range, guilty desperation, or combinations of these and more.

It is worth noting that this strong, thoughtful cast lends some needed gravitas to a plotline that does “break” one of the unspoken “rules” of much horror fare, though. Without spoiling too much, it’s both shown on screen and implied off-screen that numerous children (including newborns) have been killed over the course of this story. For some audiences, this may be a confronting choice that would cost viewers, if not for the fact that writers and actors both clearly take the story they’re telling seriously.

Further, even as the body count of the film rises, there’s generally a very solid grasp on the line between violence and excess. Impetigore‘s terror and gore are effective and deliberate. So too are the things it chooses to leave to the imagination; the choices made here work in the film’s favor, and overall keep some of the splashier moments from feeling cheap.

That isn’t to say there were no elements of the film that threw me, though. It’s difficult to discuss the film’s mounting climax without addressing one of these. There’s a long flashback sequence near the film’s peak. While I understand what the writer was going for as introducing the flashback by means of Maya experiencing a spiritual vision is a smart way to do this, its context might be lost on viewers.

While we do tacitly learn that Maya’s been having similar experiences since childhood, that implication is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. It risks leaving the viewer bemused by the presence of a drawn-out flashback tossed out in the middle of an otherwise highly tense chase sequence. It’s a pity, because granting the killed children in Impetigore‘s background the voice to speak to what was done to them, and to what they need to rest, would have granted the film a meaningful amount of heart if this aspect had been given more breathing room.

Another jarring aspect (while we’re here) is the film’s epilogue itself. While I think I understand what the intention was, possibly making room for a sequel, or maybe just establishing that there are no easy solutions to the kind of community trauma embodied in the film; it seems to have a clanging tonal shift from everything that preceded it. Where Impetigore‘s blood and violence are cleverly restrained for maximum effectiveness, the closing shots lean into something shocking and borderline-cruel that hasn’t been present elsewhere. Ultimately, it almost seems like the very competently woven bulk of the film, and the tacked-on epilogue, belong to two separate projects.

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Impetigore

0.00

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Compelling acting
• Strong sense of pacing
• Clever, astute writing
• Competent, unnerving sound design
• Great atmosphere

Cons

• Epilogue feels out of joint with the rest of the film