Trinil (2024) User Reviews

Revenge of the Head Ghost Who is Definitely Looking for His Body

[lewatsfilm · 4/10 · 11 January 2024]

Tells the story of the Waller family who move to a new house with a swimming pool in the yard. The story of this film is an adaptation of the radio drama series of the same name which was popular in the 1980s. The script was then embellished by Hagi Ahmad together with Hanung Bramantyo.

Trinil Give Back My Body begins with husband and wife couple Rara (Carmela Van De Kruk) and Sutan (Rangga Nattra) who were once their father's personal caregivers during their lifetime. They started a new life, because Rara inherited her father's tea plantation in Central Java.

Rara experiences disturbances at night, where she often sees a ghost with a head and no body in the window of her house. Worried that Rara's condition is getting worse, Sutan asks Yusof (Fattah Amin) for help. Finally, Rara gave up and allowed Yusof to enter the house to get rid of the ghost who was starting to attack her.

It feels like we are being given a fairy tale, complete with explanations. The premise of terror to a Rara from a ghostly figure named Rahayu is the main conflict of the film Trinil Return My Body.

Everything is told in quite detail, where, what, why, how. Even though there are no "plot holes", it gives us the impression that we are being dictated to in a horror film that is supposed to be mysterious.

The main player, Carmela Van der Kruk as Rara, looks great. As a woman, the terror that happened to her. How to live a new life and with all the terrible problems that suddenly occur.

Using an 80s setting, complete with all the supporting elements, from houses, vehicles, habits, and most prominently, the characters are decorated in ancient costumes.

The good thing about using an old background is the lack of lighting, the majority of which is yellow. This is used well for the horror nuance.

Beautiful filmography, whiplash plot.

[el7 · 6/10 · 27 May 2024]

Trinil is the childhood nickname of one of the main characters in the movie. I won't spoil that for you, since you'll find out soon enough in the runtime. The film starts with a newspaper montage of the passage of Pancasila in Indonesia, which serves as both a scene setter and a metaphor for what you're about to watch. Then we cut to a night scene on a plantation in which three watchmen scare the crap out of each other with a ghost story. Very soon afterward, we find out the ghost story is true. The lighting, scenery, costuming, special effects, shot setups, just everything really, is extremely well done.

Then we start meeting the main cast. Truthfully, it's also well acted, the players doing the best they can with a script that asks you to just go with it when they make decisions that make no sense whatsoever given what we've already been shown about them. This was adapted from a radio play, which perhaps lent itself better to sudden plot twists that can coax the audience to stay with it even when a character just did a 180 degree about face on what you believed they were capable of. The writing should have been adapted better to the film medium, which is less elastic when balancing character motivation against a juicy plot. But the movie is still quite watchable, even though halfway through you realize you can't trust any of them so you might as well not get too attached.

The first act of the movie sets up the situation with the haunted plantation and the young couple (the heiress and her new husband) who have moved in and seem to be the focus of the haunt. The husband, Sutan, finds out that his old school buddy Yusof is a psychiatrist/exorcist (yes really) and hires him to help rid them of their ghost. In the process of uncovering what the ghost wants, Yusof stumbles upon a mystery involving the heiress Rara's mother, who disappeared under shady circumstances.

The second act of the movie gives us that backstory about Rara's mother Rahayu, and it's heavily inspired by Snow White. It also tries to set up a paradigm of righteousness versus cravenness through the behaviors of the secondary cast, but with the main cast behaving so inconsistently it's not very successful.

The final act turns quite gory as it tries to wrap up all the loose ends and give a sense of closure. Again, it's not very successful largely due to inconsistent characterizations. But then it gave us that gotcha final frame and kind of won me over again. I'd say give it a watch if you like good cinematography and can tolerate a horror movie in which you're fine with not getting too invested in any of the main characters.