DREADOUT (2019 - Indonesian)

Studio:      Goodhouse
Director:    Kimo Stamboel
Writer:      Kimo Stamboel
Producer:  Edwin Nazir, Wida Handoyo, Kimo Stamboel
Stars:     Caitlin Halderman, Jefri Nichol, Marsha Aruan, Irsyadillah, Susan Sameh, Ciccio Manassero, Mike Lucock, Rima Melati Adams

Review Score:

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Summary:

A demonic woman haunts six teenagers who open a portal while streaming their excursion inside a cursed apartment building.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Through a dream, teenager Linda relives a repressed memory from childhood. In it, cultists hold Linda hostage while forcing her psychically gifted mother to read from ancient parchment. Also being held down by cultists, a demonic woman warns Linda’s mother to stop her incantation. A keris knife emerges from the demon’s mouth. Linda’s mother becomes possessed and collapses. Police break into the apartment as the cult leader grabs the keris. The cops shoot the cult leader dead and take Linda away.

To boost their social media popularity, classmates Jess, Dian, Beni, Erik, and Alex decide to stream an excursion into the haunted apartment building where Linda was recovered in 2008. The five friends convince Lin to join them so she can use her connection with security guard Heri to get them inside.

Lin begins remembering her past when the group discovers a room with a circular occult symbol etched into the floor. The six teens also find ancient papers whose writing only Lin can read.

Lin recites the incantation out loud. The circle in the floor supernaturally transforms into a whirlpool that pulls everyone underwater. When Dian, Beni, Erik, and Alex resurface in the room, they find no signs of Jess or Lin.

Lin resurfaces in a forest in another realm. Zombies attack Lin, but she discovers she can ward them off with the flash on her cellphone’s camera.

Lin makes her way to a shrine-like house where she finds Jess entranced. A demonic woman in a white kebaya blouse strangely dresses Jess in a red kebaya. The White Kebaya Lady attacks Lin when Lin moves to rescue Jess. The woman tries stabbing Lin with the keris knife. Lin uses her cellphone flash to weaken the woman and kills her when they crash through a wall.

Erik, Alex, Beni, and Dian retrieve security guard Heri to help them find Lin and Jess in the whirlpool. The group takes a closer look at the ancient papers to find pictures of a woman in a red kebaya standing in front of a house and killing a mob of people attacking her. The only man depicted as surviving holds the keris. From the images, the friends conclude the pool leads to the woman’s house in another realm.

Lin retrieves the keris as she and Jess recover. The two girls flee outside when a demonic woman wearing a red kebaya accuses them of killing her sister. The Red Kebaya Lady recaptures Jess. Lin goes back into the whirlpool portal.

Lin resurfaces in the apartment building with the others. Jess also returns, but wearing the red kebaya and in a state of possession. Through her cellphone camera, Lin sees the Red Kebaya Lady’s spirit controlling Jess like a puppet.

Jess cuts off Heri’s hand with an ax. Heri falls into the whirlpool. While demanding the keris be turned over to her, Jess throws Erik into the pool. Alex also falls in, but he pulls Jess with him. The portal suddenly closes.

Lin tells Dian and Beni that her cellphone flash can hurt the demon, although Lin doesn’t know why. Beni claims it is due to Lin’s special ability that allows her to see what they can’t. Dian realizes Lin is the girl from the 2008 story. Lin says she doesn’t remember who kidnapped her as a child.

After reviewing the ancient papers once more, Lin concludes they have to return the keris to stop the curse. Beni insists on taking the keris to an occultist he knows, but they are unable to leave the building because Heri locked the gate. Lin retrieves the key from Heri’s severed hand.

The portal reopens and Jess reemerges still possessed. Following a fight, Jess pulls Dian into the whirlpool with her.

Lin dives after Dian and resurfaces inside the otherworldly house. Lin sees Erik, Alex, Dian, Heri, and Jess levitating while entranced behind a mirror. Lin fights the Red Kebaya Lady until Beni arrives. Beni stabs the demon woman with the keris, which causes her to flee.

Beni reveals he belongs to a cult and he was tasked to protect Lin because she inherited her mother’s power to open the portal. However, Beni blames Lin’s mother for the death of his father, who was the cult leader killed by police in 2008.

Erik, Alex, Dian, Heri, and Jess regroup with Beni and Lin. The seven of them go outside, fight their way through zombies while it begins raining blood, and make their way to where the portal first appeared in the forest floor.

Lin reads from the parchment to make the portal reappear. Alex, Dian, Heri, and Erik return to reality.

Beni backtracks to retrieve the dropped keris. The Red Kebaya Lady attacks Beni and supernaturally throws him through the trees. Lin recovers the keris and stabs the demon in her face. The Red Kebaya Lady floats away. Unable to find Beni, Lin collects Jess and they dive into the pool.

The portal closes after Lin and Jess rejoin their friends in the apartment building. At everyone’s insistence, Lin recites the incantation in order to go back for Beni, but the portal does not reopen because it is after dawn. Heri insists on going to the hospital to reattach his hand.

Some time later, Beni’s mother receives a disturbing video of the Red Kebaya Lady possessing her son in the other realm.

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Review:

Not that it’s necessarily essential for framing the film, but I didn’t realize “DreadOut” sprung out of a video game prior to selecting it for a screening. Maybe you didn’t realize it either, so some background could provide context for the movie.

You might not know about the game because it released in 2014, is only available on PC platforms and, being produced by an indie developer in Indonesia, saw its limited popularity peak primarily overseas. A 55/100 aggregate rating on Metacritic doesn’t aid awareness either. It’s therefore safe to say the game wasn’t exactly a highly talked-about hit or anything.

From what I’ve read, gadget-based survival horror mechanics liken “DreadOut” to “Fatal Frame” in more ways than one. Players take control of Linda, leader of a troupe of high school students whose wayward field trip lands them in an abandoned town. Over the course of confronting demonic ghosts and other evils, Linda learns she possesses a paranormal power linked to an otherworldly realm and a weird woman wearing red.

That’s generally the same logline for “DreadOut’s” feature film adaptation. Instead of an abandoned town however, these teens stream an excursion into a haunted apartment building hoping for social media stardom. Linda discovers she is the only classmate capable of reading an ancient parchment found in a room with an occult symbol on the floor. When she recites the incantation, Linda opens a portal that unleashes a demonic woman who wants everyone dead.

The only English-language review of the film I could find implies the movie serves as a prequel to the game, but that doesn’t appear to be true. If it is, then Linda has a really bad habit of leading high school kids into danger on repeated occasions.

“DreadOut,” which may be further distinguished from its source via the subtitle “Tower of Doom,” seems to be a straight reconfiguration of the game. Writer/director Kimo Stamboel, previously part of ‘The Mo Brothers’ with his former creative partner Timo Tjahjanto, essentially refashions the game’s fiction with boilerplate basics to produce a formulaic Friday night fright flick. Think along lines like “Ouija” (review here) and “The Gallows” (review here) and “DreadOut” basically plays like a supernatural Blumhouse teen thriller except in Indonesian.

Stereotypes feed the protagonists. Linda occupies the slot for a quintessential good girl. Being raised by a loving single father, Linda struggles to save for college by working extra shifts for a boss who takes advantage of her “can’t say no” nature. Moments meant to be endearing include a meet-cute with her crush Erik that ends with Linda being overly apologetic after accidentally spilling soda on him. Others in their friend circle include an Instagram-obsessed rich girl and a bored guy who wants to do something daring, which I’m certain is exactly how they were reductively described in a pitch meeting to producers too.

Only one of the teens has a personality that comes into play in any relevant manner. Scares in the film’s first twenty minutes occur too early to be anything other than fake-outs. Of course, the culprit responsible for these pops is the group’s resident bully, who plays one prank by impersonating a ghost before everyone flinches at clothes draped over a lamp. The bully even pulls the predictable gag of extending his hand down a dark hole and pretending to be attacked. Slick cinematography and staging help “DreadOut’s” frights look good visually, but they can hardly be described as conceptually fresh.

Once everyone melts into a mix where individuality hardly matters, “DreadOut” turns into a straightforward cycle of haunted house spooks that can be eerily entertaining as long as you disable cognitive thinking. Stamboel isn’t terribly interested in developing “DreadOut’s” depth. He’s more focused on creating creepiness with the camera, which he at least does successfully.

Video game elements have a hard time transferring to the screen. In a game, you take for granted that weird items work as weapons because you understand the medium must provide a means of offense to the player. No one wonders why Mario can throw fireballs after grabbing a flashing flower, we just accept it. In a movie though, viewers require answers for how a cellphone camera flash can hurt zombies, and “DreadOut” doesn’t have any explanations. Stamboel’s thin script also features frustratingly little background behind the demon woman’s curse, rendering much of the horror hollow since reasons rarely motivate anyone’s actions.

Even though repetitive panting and constant shouting of everyone’s names (“Jess? Jess? Jess! Jess!”) gets annoying, “DreadOut” gets by through a cool, witchy vibe that puts satanic style into its standardized creepshow. Like the game it’s based on, 55/100 reflects the film fairly because “DreadOut” is an above average thriller with some flair, although it’s more likely to be received with indifferent shoulder shrugs than to make lasting imprints in the mind’s eye. It’s approachable and efficient. Yet as alluded to earlier, if “DreadOut” were made in America, Blumhouse would have dumped it to VOD and horror fandom would have moved on with very little murmuring by now.

NOTE: There are two mid-credits scenes.

Review Score: 55

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