Ritual

Well this is a movie made with love! Yes, the good old times are coming back to us, because here we have something not made to bring millions from the box office, but to entertain, to explore the beauty of cinema.

OK, let's get down to business: indeed, the plot is not the most original, but not the most used one either, it will present itself as new to most and as a beautiful deja-vu to the rest. The acting was quite lovely, the plot makes you wonder a lot and the ending will snatch some applause from the beginners and a smile or two from the elders.

There isn't much to say about Modus Anomali without spoiling it, therefore I have to pick my words carefully, so, I'll sum it up like this: it's a nice breath of fresh air, which I for one was dying to take, not scary, a little suspense yes, some thrills and overall a good story.

Do I recommend it? Well if you want to see a nice film, sure, this one will do the job. Just be aware, don't come here thinking you'll fine the lost gem of horrors, just walk by, grab a seat, some chips, relax and enjoy. It's a movie made with love, you won't wanna buy to see it, but you will want to watch it! Cheers!

Well, i've gotta say that i was interested to watch it because of its catchy title and the idea about an English spoken film made by Indonesians (i reckon it's the 1st Indonesian film which used English as the main language in it).

The 1st 50 minutes, the film seems to be so dull with the shallow explanations, barely interactions from one character to another (unlike other previous Anwar's films), how kid characters ruin it with the way they converse in the forest poorly shows lack of thrilled & anxious expression, seemingly to be a shallow no-background story plot, and unsynchronized & unexplained details(necessarily prepared for the ending). All can lead the audience to a boredom and sleepiness.

Endure it, then the film will show you the worth of Joko Anwar as a writer-director and Rio Dewanto as an actor.

Anwar prepared an unexpected suspense plot mixed with some thrilling horror ingredients blending them all in the perfectly fit location, and served it to the audience with some quite decent cinematography. Dewanto as the leading actor made convincing enough expression and acting (great pukes as well) so that his performance made "John Evans" becoming a more interesting character.

After watching it, some questions may show up in mind regarding the background story that causes things that happen in "Modus Anomali" and how the story goes after the film ends. Generally it's a recommended nice flick to spend the evening with.

8/10.

At first, after seeing the trailer, I was like a little bit not surprised about the genre, thriller, or let's say noir movie. As we know that Anwar's two recent movies took the same genre (Dead Time : Kala (2007) and The Forbidden Door (2009)). But as always, Anwar succeed to made me interested.

Well, this is sort of movie which thriller fans will enjoy and I am on of the fan. It was a great experience watching this movie. You'll get a very tensed atmosphere which supported by astounding shooting angle. It is also supported by the score which wasn't excessive, like another typical thriller movie, and still precise.

The actors was quite awesome particularly Rio Dewanto as the leading role. His expression was quite convincing.

The negatives about this movie is a little bit seam computer graphic at one scene. Yeah, just one scene. Also, considering that the actors are all Indonesians and this movie uses English as the language, stiff conversations frequently emerged though their pronunciations was very good.

All could I say, I am proud as Indonesians! Joko Anwar has made such a good movie in the middle of those crappy-cheesy-cheap horror movies invasion in Indonesia. I'm moved how a few Indonesian film-makers still try to raise the Indonesia film towards a better future.

A man wakes up in a shallow grave in a forest with no memories. He soon discovers scenes of horror and tries to discover what happened.

This Indonesian thriller has clearly been pitched at an international market seeing as it's an English language film. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when lines of dialogue are spoken they are a bit clunky. However, there really is hardly any dialogue at all. The story is told virtually all via images. We work out details gradually and slowly put things together. To be honest, for the first hour I wasn't too impressed. There were occasionally effective moments such as when the protagonist hides in a shack to evade a mysterious opponent. But for the most part this opening two-thirds goes by a little too slowly and some character actions seem entirely bizarre. However, it has to be said that the final third is really rather good. It actually puts some of the frustrating moments from earlier into some kind of context and it ensures that the film ends in a satisfying way. This is for me an example of a film that is definitely saved, or even defined, by its clever denouement. For this reason it is worth sticking with for sure.

A luckless individual wakes up from being buried alive in the forest with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Stumbling across a cabin he finds a horrific snuff film. From there on, he slowly regains his memory and realises he and his family are being stalked by a mysterious killer. So begins a murderous game of cat & mouse as he attempts to save his family and stay one step ahead of his pursuer...

Let's face it, this premise sounds pretty generic and bog standard, doesn't it? Well... it isn't.

And I'm not gonna tell you any more except to recommend you stick with this unusually shot in English Inonesian offering as it's a smarter film than it appears to be. While standard in set up at first, director Joko Anwar cleverly pulls the rug out from under your feet with a surprising and smart little revelation.

So horror fans, have patience with this one, as its payoff is well worth it, and while the eagle eyed and sharp listeners may realise what's going on, it's still a satisfying film that puts a nicely innovative spin on the survivalist horror sub genre.

7.5/10 a decent little horror and what with 2009's Dara, Indonesia are showing themselves a force to be reckoned with for horror cinema.