Indonesian Horror Movies

The first movie, The Third Eye, is about two sisters who move into their childhood home after the death of their parents. Once they move in weird things start happening to the younger sister, Abel. Abel keeps imagining there are strange figures in the house trying to attack her. The older sister, Alia, and her boyfriend think the younger sister needs psychiatric help. Before Alia is able to bring Abel to a psychiatrist she has agreed to see a psychic which Abel has been secretly seeing. Once at the psychic’s house the psychic informs Alia that Abel’s third eye is fully open. She clarifies that we all have a third eye but not all of them are fully open, Abel’s third eye is fully open and Alia’s third eye is not. When your third eye is fully open you can see ghosts (the people from the other, dark world). The psychic warns that these ghosts are not always friendly and might have malicious intent. Alia does not believe a word of what the psychic has told her to be true. So, Alia makes a proposal. Alia tells Abel that she will have her third eye opened by the psychic but if nothing happens they will then go see a psychiatrist. Abel and the psychic warn Alia that this is dangerous and she that she does not understand what kind of fear she will experience if she fully opens her third eye. Nonetheless, Alia insists. The psychic conducts a ritual to open Alia’s third eye. Of course, after the initial eye-opening Alia experiences nothing. However, soon after vengeful ghosts start to appear. Now knowing that Abel has been telling the truth about the house the whole time Alia begins to fear the same malicious spirits. The sisters call back the psychic because they believe she has the ability to rid the house of the ghosts. When in the middle of a ritual to get rid of the ghosts, the girls are taken back in time to the moment when the current ghosts lurking their house were in fact murdered in the house prior to their family’s ownership. The girls find out that the murderer of the previous owners is in fact still the gardener of the estate. A little later on, one of the ghosts possesses Alia and goes to track down the gardener who killed his family. The ghost successfully kills the gardener. After all of this, Abel and the psychic somehow are able to turn Alia back to herself and they rid the spirits from their home. Both Alia and Abel will continue to have their third eye fully open forever, but they will learn how to manage better in the future. 

The second movie, Sabrina, is about a couple who takes in their niece after her mother has been possessed by a demon and the father killed by said demon. The child, Vanya, has a hard time adjusting to living with her uncle Aiden and aunt Maira. Aiden is a toy maker and company owner of the toy manufacturer. Aiden is also the brother of Vanya’s deceased father. As a gift, Aiden brings home a doll named Sabrina which he is manufacturing in his business. Vanya instantly loves it. Ever since the doll entered the family’s life weird subtle things keep happening such as Vanya’s music box continuously playing by itself. Sooner than later, Maira starts noticing the strange things happening in the house and things gradually start to become more threatening until the demon actually tries to kill Maira multiple times. The demon is disguised as Vanya’s dead mother, therefore fooling Vanya into thinking it is her mother. At this point the family’s lives have become so jeopardized that Maira and Aiden call in a paranormal investigative couple who come to try and remove the demon from their lives. The demon explains that it was summoned. Suddenly, the woman from the paranormal investigating couple, Laras, experiences some kind of flashback in which she discovers shocking news. The flashback portrays Aiden going to a man who performs witchcraft, asking the man to take his brother out of the picture somehow so that he can be the sole owner of the toy company. All in all, Aiden agreed to give the demon his brothers physical body and soul so that his brother could not own any part of the company, but it turned out the demon wanted his wife’s body and Aiden agreed to that request knowing that his brother would still go away. Shortly after, Laras finally defeats the demon with the help of everyone else. Aiden goes to jail. The spirit of Vanya’s mother comes to visit Vanya, telling her to stop being sad and to be happy she has her aunt Maira, who loves her, and who will be here to take care of her. 

There were multiple emics portrayed in both movies. For instance, there was the theme of possession in both movies, the presence of family relationships, both movies portrayed the Indonesia’s landscape, a psychic/paranormal activity investigators, also there were plot twists in both movies. It was interesting that both movies ended on a positive note, with goodness prevailing. I would say both movies definitely portrayed interdependent construal’s of the self. In, The Third Eye, the two sisters constantly fought the ghosts together and, in the end, they defeated the ghosts together. No one character saved the day all by themselves. In Sabrina, the family and the paranormal activity investigators worked together to fight the demon. If one person was being singled out by the demon the rest came running to their rescue. I personally loved the landscapes in the movies, beautiful oceans and greenery were displayed throughout both movies. Overall, the Indonesian movies were the scariest in my opinion. I rate the first movie, The Third Eye,as a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the least scary and five being the scariest). And, I rate the second movie, Sabrina, as a 4.5.