Harum Malam

I recently watched the Malaysian film 🇲🇾 Blood Flower (2023) on Shudder. The plot centers on a young man with supernatural abilities and visions, which is dismissed by others as madness. However, when gruesome murders plague his community, he becomes their unlikely savior, tasked with uncovering the truth and protecting them.

Directed by Dain Said (Interchange), the film features performances by Brent Palarae (Nova), Idan Aedan (Zombitopia), Remy Ishak (Pulang), and Nadiya Nissa (Nova).

This is a movie where you have to shut your brain off, forget there's a story, and just go for the gore; because that's all this film was, an excuse to cram as much gore into a film as possible. There are times where the horror elements rely too much on CGI, like the ghost and spirit scenes. However, there are some amazing kills that were really impressive and there's a ton of blood splatter, appendages flying and creative mutilation. WARNING: there are some eating scenes that's a bit much. The ending with the machete was absolutely wild.

In conclusion, Blood Flower caters to gore enthusiasts, offering little beyond its visceral spectacle. I'd give it a 4/10 and recommend it only to those prepared for its graphic content.

This film had potential but I can't believe they messed it up. The protagonist was so wimpy and girly that it was cringy to see him constantly curled up in fear. He also look as smart as a jar of molasses. Why do they do that to a character they're trying to endear and get the audience to relate to and sympathize with. You don't want to hate the protagonist like you do here. I just think it was poorly written and it looks like it could have been good even with the small budget. The story just looks like it was written on the Fly. So many things happen when it didn't need to, and things didn't happen when it should have. It's hard to explain where this keeps missing and it just looks like it was made by two different groups that did not communicate with one another.

Blood Flower is a simple tale of possession, and coming of age film. It's housed in a structure that speaks largely of morality, both good versus evil but also taking responsibilities for one's actions.

Iqbal is an adolescent with supernatural powers, as does his mother. She with the father act as exorcist in Malaysia, and are Muslim. (I mention this only to separate this film from the American assumption of Catholicism/Christianity as the religion for possession films.) It opens with them starting to train Iqbal to become an exorcist as well. But, not all goes well.

The rest of the film is various examples of good versus evil across a spectrum of dimensions of people residing in a large apartment complex, asaumed for lower income families. This tale has many storylines that all intertwine based upon the characters' close proximity. All are simple stories based on that good-bad characteristic and the choices that are made.

Engaging simple story is watchable and overall I was entertained. It was well made, but it's not a complicated film.

When 95% of the characters are annoying and unsympathetic it makes it hard to root for them to win. When people make decisions that make no sense or have any rational basis you have to provide a reason or ulterior motive for th audience to understand. Whe people die horribly and everyone around just blithely goes on like nothing has happened or like death is a daily boring thing with no explanation it makes it impossible to sympathize. Also when local customs won't be easily understood by a wide audience they need to provide dialogue or exposition that can enlighten the viewer to understand what is going on. The characters were so unlikable we cheered at their demise.

Seen this on Disney Hotstar and i can confirm that this film sucks. The lack of effort is in the script is so glaring. The film had me excited going as i thought it was made by Skop Production and i thought one of the Haslam kid was directing the movie turns out its Dan Said. Some of the scene was a bit stuck and the script was confusing at times. The actors were fine but since the script was horrible it didn't help the overall score with this horror flick. I end up pissed a bit because the ending was not satisfactory for me. Bront Palarae has a knack in movies with horrible ending. Please do better.