Do You See What I See

Recently I started watching indonesian horror movies and they are really good!! This is movie is based on a podcast and it is really hard to make a movie based on a podcast so a big salute for that! And talking about overall movie technically than the I loved the lighting and cinematography of the movie the way they have shot the movie in low lighting and giving the realistic experience to the audience. The camera angles was best I really enjoyed watching the movie. Sound plays a important role in horror movie and the makers of this film has done a great job in the sound part too... Really nice work!!

Mawar turns 20 and along with her best friends visits her parents' grave on her birthday. She feels lonely and yearns for a boyfriend to love her for who she is. In the graveyard, she chooses a boyfriend as her birthday wish and Mawar is granted that wish. Soon she starts behaving oddly as she starts giving more priority to her mysterious boyfriend Restu, which concerns her best friends and it doesn't take much time to realize, who this mysterious Restu is. Will they be able to save her friend from the toxic relationship she has got herself into, forms rest of the story.

This is one film which I treated mostly as a horror-comedy and it worked better that way for me, rather taking it seriously. More than the main character, the friends characters were more impactful. There are a couple of scenes involving the demon which is pulled off well. Though the film starts with a glimpse of a mysterious man digging a grave, the director circles back to it only in the penultimate scene only. Until then, the story revolved mostly among the girls with the stakes not too high considering the savior they turn to is another friend. The reveal in the end was predictable but as a film it definitely was a decent one time watch.

The fact that "Do You See What I See" was an Asian horror movie that I had neither seen nor heard about, was actually more than sufficient to make me opt to watch it. I do have a thing for Asian cinema and horror cinema, so this was a given.

Writers Lele Laila and Mizter Popo put together a fair enough script. It was, however, somewhat on the generic and bland side. I sort of semi-zoned out about halfway through the movie, because there wasn't a whole lot scary stuff going on, and the pacing of the narrative was rather sluggish. "Do You See What I See" feels like it is a background noise type of movie, provided you can understand spoken Indonesian, of course.

I was not familiar with the cast in the movie, but the acting performances were certainly fair enough.

Visually, then director Awi Suryadi certain managed to make an atmospheric movie by using lighting, or lack thereof mostly to be honest, locations and such. It was not a movie that really incorporated a lot of special effects, though. I really do like the corpse effects, though.

Watchable, sure, but "Do You See What I See" was hardly a memorable foray into the Indonesian horror cinema. There are far better and way more scary Indonesian horror movies out there.

My rating of "Do You See What I See" lands on a five out of ten stars.

After that, it resorted to the SOS different day routine of having the protagonists doing utterly asinine and stupid stuff for no apparent reason.

The psychic had already laid out what needed to be done, yet we have to watch various acts of gross stupidity. Plus I still don't get the idea of turtle walking as a means of building suspense. Or it could be a means of padding the run time, but either way I find it extremely annoying.

Another pet peeve would be characters who cannot communicate, stand around looking stupid staring at each other instead of telling the other person what's going on. Sure in the moment of fright one would imagine shock holding a person's tongue in place.

It just that every movie uses the same dumb recipe, that takes the predictability facture to a whole new level. The only redeeming factor left would be the end, so it wasn't the usual cheese fest happy ending.

Good for a onetime viewing, but I cannot see this as something I would ever watch again.

Do You See What I See (a phrase I literally only associate with the Christmas carol, so I can't help but hum it even whilst typing this) is a fun little Indonesian ghost flick that is overall pretty effective and entertaining.

It follows Mawar (Diandra Agatha), a university student who inadvertently finds herself in a relationship with a ghost, as her hapless friends try and save her soul. It's a fun concept and is clearly rooted in Indonesian folklore and mythology, making it an even richer experience on that front.

The performances are honestly pretty great across the board; you really sense the deep friendship the main girls have with one another and I think Agatha in particular shows a lot of range, although I do wish her performance was a little more varied and intense at times.

I also have to commend the cinematography, that often mixes first-person "found footage" style with conventional horror techniques, with some Raimiesque trickery. It keeps what is an otherwise stripped down story (mostly set in two locations) relatively fresh and interesting.

However, I do think the pacing is pretty bad; not only does the movie take a bit too long to get going, but it does feel somewhat repetitive in the middle. Lots of cheap jump scares and a prevailing sense that we're biding time until the climax comes. For a movie with so much opportunity for character development, it's a shame there isn't more of it.

I know it's based on a 30 minute-ish podcast episode, but like...isn't the point of a film adaptation to bring in things that the original form couldn't really explore?

I also wish the movie went more into the lore and explained some of the plot elements better; perhaps the film is directed at an Indonesian audience, so it's possible that there's cultural context I'm missing, but there are just things that happen in the film I found myself a bit puzzled by.

However, I think the movie really picks up towards the end, with a pretty fun and tense sequence that leads to a truly devastating and frankly, story redeeming ending that really stuck with me. It's the sort of ending that reminds you why it's ESSENTIAL to get out of the American bubble re movie consumption, especially with horror.

Do You See What I See is like watching a professional figure skater start off strong, start to wobble through her set, and then totally stick the landing.