Do You See What I See

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.

Well it's a decent story execution was not good, the thing is movie lacks that connection with characters which it didn't develop which is why you don't feel what's meant to be shown. Lack of impact due to poor execution and story telling. You can watch once if you are bored. Acting was not great either.. i mean they tried but the role of younger sister i mean the actor couldn't act well. The boyfriend was just there nothing much just for plot reason, had to be useful once with nonsense relationship triangle again no impact or sense. Overall movie lacked the connection and very poor execution, you won't miss much if you skipped it.

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.

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.

In relation to how most horror movies are rated on IMDB, I would have expected this movie to have an average rating between 6 and 7. Its a well made solid movie. The only issue is that it can get slow at times but overally keeps a decent pace with plenty of actual horror scenes which are quite scary and creepy. There are so many much slower and boring horror movies rated higher than this. This is actually an entertaining movie. Characters and their interactions are quite realistic and believable as well and each actor has done justice with their respective characters. Story is not too deep or complicated but it serves its purpose. All the special and visual effects were also done well for the most part. I am not a big fan of how the movie ended though. But that is a highly subjective take, some will probably like the ending.

In the end, its a decent one time watch movie for horror fans who want to watch a movie which is a straight up horror movie and NOT some metaphorical movie about trauma. Casual fans might find some scenes to be too scary though. Indonesia has become World's Horror movie capital in my opinion and this movie just adds to that.