21/44
Overall, there’s a lot to like here
Story
Soriya returns to Cambodia on a quest to find herself after her mother’s death, finding a family she never knew and an old building filled with dark secrets. After her mother’s death, a Japanese-Cambodian manga artist and her boyfriend decide to travel to Cambodia to learn more about her past, but when she’s confronted with strange occurrences in the building that hint at something darker going on with the residents, she must stop it before it spreads. One of the strongest features is a really enjoyable and immersive setup that features many interconnected parts that come together rather well.
This creates a fantastic sense of impending dread the longer the two remain in the community, the increasing danger leading to more thrills
Starting with the backdrop of her mother’s death under mysterious circumstances while living in the community she long ago moved away from, it provides the means to establish the motive for the return as well as giving ample insight into their past with each other. Since we are aware of the relationship presented and how it affects her, the desire to reconnect with everyone once she arrives to understand the cause is a natural part of their reunion. This also makes the presence of the community’s behavior and rituals seem like the perfect choice to enhance this type of story by appearing as quaint customs before gradually appearing darker and more disturbing.
This setup helps the film become much more entertaining once the ominous instincts start to come to fruition
With the low-key nature revolving around the community’s good-natured, if slightly off-kilter, behavior or simply noticing ritual decorations left behind, it’s enjoyable enough to serve the film until it gets to the more explicit sequences later on once she is left alone in the apartment. The big sequence plays out as some form of bizarre meal preparation with the gathered family members and others she has met in the community performing what appears to be a ritual ceremony designed to prepare her for a special occult ritual that soon turns into a nightmarish fever dream that she can’t distinguish from reality, which is pretty impressive. She begins the remaining portion of this in a much darker genre effort that includes several revelations about the visions she has been experiencing, leading up to the wild finale where the dark origins of the ceremony are revealed as it involves bringing the new spirit into the body of a host that is once again more secretive than expected but still manages to have some generally creepy visuals and chases around the compound.
Among the major factors is the sense of confusion present here as very little is explained
All of this brings a lot to like here as while there aren’t too many drawbacks present here, several issues do arise. As the first half is much more ominous and low-key than anything else, there isn’t much that reveals what’s going on, preferring to stay focused on the haunting atmosphere of the building as well as their eerie behavior to generate the scares almost exclusively . As a result, almost nothing is revealed about what the community is trying to do, what their ritual entails, or how everything is supposed to be conducted, so very little is hinted at.
Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language
It’s not until the end that everything comes together, so there’s a chance that it might be somewhat confusing at first to get into what’s going on. The other downside is that this setup also makes for a rather slow first half and very little happens beyond setting up the plots that are paid off at the end, which takes a while to get its point across. Those are the few minor drawbacks on display with this one.
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