Pengabdi Setan 2: Communion

Joko Anwar is master at his own game! He has set a new standard for hauntings, pushing the boundaries to the next level! Technically, directorially, visually and atmospherically this is a masterpierce and a gem from Indonesia, which also sends a response to James Wan's Conjuring. The first installment was a solid tale based on the classic haunted house with family (where he used an effective method of scare using a bell) and I rated it 7/10, but this is a different cup of tea. He made the sequel straight for IMAX and it's more expensive, wilder, more brutal, scarier, grittier and ball-busting. I appreciate that the film doesn't take place in a house with a family, but we have a whole apartment complex with a bunch of people, and the ghosts are on a rampage. The first hour is a bit slower and quieter, introducing us to the characters, carefully building the atmosphere, but even then there are some solid scenes (the elevator scene with the kids is really uncomfortable. Probably wouldn't pass muster in the U.S.), and once the storm starts outside, things start rolling. An intense chilling hour-long hell that won't let the viewer breathe and will make them change their underwear at least three times and call an ambulance. It's full of mutilated ugly corpses that either roll on the ground or walk, there are ghosts, entities, cults and other creepy nasty apparitions. There's not actually one villain, but the place is haunted by someone different each time and that's pretty damn refreshing. Moreover, Anwar handles the atmosphere brilliantly and makes excellent use of the setting of an old apartment complex, with narrow corridors, dungeons, shafts, darkness and characters who have to make do with just a torch or a match or a camera. Finally, a ghost story where people are really concerned about their lives, so the viewer fears for the characters and Anwar is really uncompromising with them. The characters die sometimes painfully ugly deaths, including the children, to whom the director was especially uncompromising. The camera work, the ideas, the sound and the atmosphere are really from another universe, even Wan would have given a standing ovation here. I also praise the excellent craftsmanship, where perhaps for the first time there are no cheap CGI effects and everything looks expensive and classy. Seeing this in the cinema will probably cause my organs to fail. The scariest genre flick of the year and maybe even a couple of years together! Watching it feels like watching The Conjuring and playing “Resident Evil” at the same time. 9/10. (31.10.2022)

I deliberately kept the screening of this film for a moment when I would have some peace and quiet, so I could enjoy it undisturbed, alone, at night, with headphones, because, lured by the positive reviews, I anticipated an atmospheric horror feast. But I'm not very happy. The scares are decent in places, but nothing that completely unsettled me. Mostly, it was the script that bothered me. A large part of the film consists of a dozen or so characters wandering around a darkened tower block with completely incomprehensible motivations. When one of them starts crawling through a narrow crack to help his neighbor fetch a fork (?!) from the apartment next door, I thought it might have switched into admitted parody mode, and that is not the only absurd sequence. The final explanation of what was supposedly going on is also done in the laziest way. Besides, it's not just the script I have a problem with, but also the direction, whenever there's something a bit more action-packed going on, it's a cluttered mess. For example, I didn't get anything out of the flashy finale. (06.11.2022)