A woman sets out to prove that religion is a hoax. Her method? She decides to be buried alongside a man she despises—someone who did unspeakable things to her brother and other kids. What she’s trying to demonstrate is that if this dead man isn’t tormented in his grave, then religion is just a lie, which will upset a lot of people. But how will it play out?
Grave Tortur is directed by the great son of Indonesia, Joko Anwar. With Grave Tortur, he tackles something risky: religion. It’s a bold move considering how many crazy religious fanatics there are around the world.
The movie explores an incident from the protagonist’s childhood. After that event, she and her brother had to look out for each other. But then something happens to her brother—something you can probably guess because you know what happens when an old pervert gets too close to young kids. They manage to escape that nightmare, and now the protagonist works at a nursing home while her brother is a mortician. It turns out one of the elderly residents at the nursing home is that same monstrous man from the past who preyed on children. When he dies, she’s determined to prove that the religious belief that after his death he will be tormented in his grave because of his sins is nonsense.
The first 80 minutes? Slow and boring. There’s hardly any horror. Grave Tortur feels like a dull drama with characters that go through hardships, but they are still pretty dull. The sister is a rebel since she goes against religion, and her brother is dead on the inside. But it’s the sister character that has to carry the movie since the brother doesn’t have much to offer since he’s dead on the inside.
Eventually, the horror kicks in, but we get some silly, generic jump-scare scenes, and the CGI in those scenes is awful. And then we have the classic tunnel scene, which is beyond disappointing. What happens in the tunnel isn’t scary or atmospheric; it’s just predictable and worn out. Oh, look, a crying dead kid who’s supposed to be scary, but isn’t. Come on!
My issue with the movie is that I couldn’t care less about religion, and Grave Tortur is obsessed with it. When it finally decides to deliver some horror, it’s mostly generic and, honestly, unintentionally funny. I found myself laughing at a few scenes because they were just ridiculous. The scene with the old woman in the washing machine? Completely stupid. Her ridiculous actions killed any chance of the scene being intense. Instead of building tension, it just made me roll my eyes.
I’ll admit, I liked the last five minutes. By that, I mean the moment we hear the sounds and see the protagonist’s facial expressions. What’s happening behind her is more comical than scary, but the sounds actually got to me.
Unfortunately, right before the credits, the movie lost me. The storytelling was all over the place, and the final scene felt cheap. You could call it an “open” ending, but that doesn’t save it. I also got the impression Joko Anwar chickened out because he was playing with the theme of religion. If he’d delivered an ending with a real punch to the face of the religious freaks, he’d probably be the most wanted man in Indonesia.
Faradina Mufti, who plays the protagonist, is great in her role. But some of the other actors, especially the old farts at the nursing home, were pretty bad. The old man who gets upset is especially awful in the scenes where he loses it. His performance just felt forced and over the top.
I was massively disappointed by this movie. Grave Tortur is a tedious experience with generic horror scenes and a mostly absent atmosphere—except for the final five minutes. It never manages to create a truly unsettling vibe, and there are bizarre moments that don’t make sense. I expected more from someone as talented as Joko Anwar.