Harum Malam

Blood Flower is a simple tale of possession, and coming of age film. It's housed in a structure that speaks largely of morality, both good versus evil but also taking responsibilities for one's actions.

Iqbal is an adolescent with supernatural powers, as does his mother. She with the father act as exorcist in Malaysia, and are Muslim. (I mention this only to separate this film from the American assumption of Catholicism/Christianity as the religion for possession films.) It opens with them starting to train Iqbal to become an exorcist as well. But, not all goes well.

The rest of the film is various examples of good versus evil across a spectrum of dimensions of people residing in a large apartment complex, asaumed for lower income families. This tale has many storylines that all intertwine based upon the characters' close proximity. All are simple stories based on that good-bad characteristic and the choices that are made.

Engaging simple story is watchable and overall I was entertained. It was well made, but it's not a complicated film.

Seen this on Disney Hotstar and i can confirm that this film sucks. The lack of effort is in the script is so glaring. The film had me excited going as i thought it was made by Skop Production and i thought one of the Haslam kid was directing the movie turns out its Dan Said. Some of the scene was a bit stuck and the script was confusing at times. The actors were fine but since the script was horrible it didn't help the overall score with this horror flick. I end up pissed a bit because the ending was not satisfactory for me. Bront Palarae has a knack in movies with horrible ending. Please do better.

When 95% of the characters are annoying and unsympathetic it makes it hard to root for them to win. When people make decisions that make no sense or have any rational basis you have to provide a reason or ulterior motive for th audience to understand. Whe people die horribly and everyone around just blithely goes on like nothing has happened or like death is a daily boring thing with no explanation it makes it impossible to sympathize. Also when local customs won't be easily understood by a wide audience they need to provide dialogue or exposition that can enlighten the viewer to understand what is going on. The characters were so unlikable we cheered at their demise.

The film started with high expectation with the visuals and score, however, it went downhill really fast. No clear plot, a lot of the scenes have loop holes. Even the conclusion of the movie doesn't make sense. Just make you awe at something that is so terrible. The characters are mostly unlikeable and no good development or growth, quite bland. Really dislike them, and their relationship with others is no where to be found. Iqbal and Norman look like they're not in character. The supporting characters are more interesting. The props and CGs overall is okay, but some parts of the film are quite bad.

Despite the limitations of using English subtitles to understand what was going on, I think this film could have been better. It seems like the main goal was a gorefest, but a more interesting (and less derivative) tale could certainly have been told -- if anyone involved cared (but they didn't). The pacing was not great; the film often dragged.

The first act is the most interesting, as we're trying to figure out what's going on. The rest of the film slowly devolves into supernatural horror (possession and murder). I didn't like many of the characters, and it's hard to feel sympathy for people who aren't behaving or communicating well (even when lives depend on following rules and sharing information).

The cultural differences were mildly interesting -- at first -- but when the film got into gory-exorcism mode the disgusting happenings dominated (but not in a good way). I also found the use of seemingly generic prayers (by exorcists) to accomplish very specific goals quite unconvincing. Not sure if this was to avoid offending certain people.

I don't recommend this unless you specifically like Malaysian horror. I give it 3.5 stars, with half-star penalties for excessive gore, missed opportunities, and poor pacing. That's two (2) stars total.