Movie review

THE DOLL

The Doll is an Indonesian horror film produced by the Hitmaker Studio. This movie is directed and scripted by Rocky Soraya and acted by Shandy Aulia, Denny Sumargo and Sara Wijayanto.

The Doll is a story of a poor married couple who gets a chance to come out from their poorness and live luxuriously. Daniel, the husband (Denny Sumargo) had a bad experience in his family. Daniel comes from a divorced family and obviously that had left a big impact on him when he has grown up. His mother left his father because they were too poor. He witnessed and heard the conversation between both of his parents when he was small while crying.

As time passed by, while they were living without his mother, one day, he found his father dead by the wall of their house. His father killed himself by cutting his own hand and died miserably. Daniel tried very hard not to live like his parents and since then, he hates being poor.

However, despite the trauma he had, he married a very beautiful and understanding woman named Anya (Shandy Aulia). Anya is a doll maker. She is beautiful, creative and very loving. She understands her husband even if they are poor. They live lovingly together but that is not obviously enough for Daniel due to his terrible past.

One day, Daniel came back home with good news; he gets promoted. So they move in a new and luxurious house. The neighbourhood is having a weekly casual meeting and Anya is invited. Her neighbour has a daughter who loves playing hide and seeks. Anya agrees to let the kid to play in her house whenever she wants to as a company whenever Daniel goes for work.

The suspense starts when Anya’s neighbour tells her a story about spirits. Anya and Daniel is a couple who does not believe in such thing. They just believe in logic. The neighbour tells her few signs to know if there is a spirit in the house. There will be a bad smell and a sudden sound at night. She refuses to believe, yet, it actually happens after Daniel comes back with an old doll. Daniel wants to throw it away but Anya wants to keep it. Then, that night, there is a rotten smell and a sudden sound of a glass breaks in the kitchen.

Things start becoming worse to Anya when she is alone and Daniel went out to work overnight. Something definitely is disturbing her. Nevertheless, she does not seem to be scared over it. She always tries to go towards the sounds and smells. When things get pretty intense, she tells her neighbour about it. Her neighbour comes to her house to witness it herself and found the doll placed at the doll’s cabinet. She is shocked and she starts to tell Anya the story of the doll.

The doll is believed to be the spirit of a young girl named Uchi. She is killed violently in a rob case which caused her family to die without any mercy. Since then, the doll seems to be alive and cause a chaos to whomever who tries to get rid of it. They will be killed if they do. So nobody ever has the guts to mess with the doll. However, Daniel actually dares to cut the tree which belongs to the doll since he does not believe in such thing. Since then, the doll follows him back home and lives with him because it no longer has anywhere to stay on.

Because Daniel gets rid of the tree, the doll gets angry and starting to mess with Anya instead. The doll tries to play hide and seek with Anya every night and Anya responds out of curiosity. Things get worse when the doll is trying to hurt Anya. Her neighbour calls upon an exorcist (Sara Wijayanto) who used to deal with the doll to help Anya and Daniel. When she starts calling the spirit, it is revealed that the spirit has changed into becoming more evil and determined as compared to when she dealt with it before. The doll wants Daniel dead and it seems like it is too angry at him.

So what do you think will happen to Anya and Daniel? Will they be dead or will the exorcist succeeds in calming the doll down and stops it from messing up like she did before? What is actually the twist behind the doll’s hatred towards Daniel? What is actually the main reason why the doll is possessed by Uchi? Is it to revenge or is it because Uchi had loved her doll too much to assume that it is alive? That is what you have to find out by watching this movie.

Personally, despite the fact that this horror film is from Indonesian, I must say the storyline is a good one. Horror movies are not really well known if it comes from Indonesia as compared to Japanese’s or Thailand’s. However, I’m satisfied with the plot. The climax is totally unexpected and that is indeed the best part of this movie. I love the twist; it leaves me a good satisfaction through it all. This movie is not that scary but thanks to the sound effect, there are parts of it which makes my heart skips a bit faster. The spirit of Uchi is quite horrifying too when it comes out of nowhere.

The downside of this movie is the sound effect. I hate the fact that they exaggerate the sound effect a little too much. I’m aware of the reason why sound effect is important in a horror film but in this movie, it is totally unnecessary to use it too much. It actually spoils my mood in understanding and feeling this movie. It would be nice if the sound comes out only on certain parts. If it does, I think the scariness of this movie would be a bit higher than expected. However, The Doll is a good movie. I have watched few horror movies that are completely a disappointment and not worth it so The Doll is still better than those. My overall rate for this movie would be 8/10.