Do You See What I See

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.

Adapting a short 30 minute-ish audio only podcast into an over 90 minute full feature film is not an easy feat for sure. However I was pleasantly surprised by how good this movie really was initially. It started out strong and I really like how they were able to still make the movie so creepy & tense despite we who have already listened to the podcast kinda got the gist of what will happen next already. Unfortunately the way they dragged the movie in the latter act kinda bogged down the whole movie altogether. But this was in no way a deal breaker as overall the movie was still really worth a watch, even just to witness Diandra Agatha's shift from the innocent naive Mawar to a much more sinister version of herself.

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.

Another Indonesian movie with a fantastic horror plot. Based on a horror podcast, the movie adaptation is simply superb and wi;l keep the audience hooked.

Although, I dont understand the language but the screenplay and story will keep your eyeballs stuck to the screen (Ofcourse you have to follow subtitles :) ) After a long I have come across such a unique plot in the horror genre. I will definitely recommend this one to watch out, if you are a fan of Horror movies.

You will also get to understand the Indonesian culture related to death rituals and bonding among the friends. The actors are also very good and the movie is a fresh one in this genre. So watch and enjoy :)

9 Stars from me.