KKN di Desa Penari

I'll give the director and the FX team some credit, It brought the movie alive in its already almost boring state of horror. To be honest? It isn't one of the greatest, it isn't one of the worst either.

The culture represented is almost near spot on, the acting of the cast did the best of what they could, the comedy for me as on point as it got a few laughs in theatre. I looked more after the parts where the cast had conversations more then the horror to open up the actual plot. The tension was lackluster, the horror wasn't terrifying or incredibly bad, just lackluster and missing a lot of elements that make something scary.

I like the kkn story from twitter which makes me curious. But when made into a film this is not so interesting the film relies too much on jumpscare which is very excessive, I don't even understand if this is about students or the ghosts in the village, but at least the Javanese language is presented very well.

Another classic sample on how a good story brought into a film. Lack of emotions, plot twist, mood, etc.

Don't get me wrong. Yes, you'll get what you read in the story. Yes, I know that's how the story goes. But usually this is how a film director being tested. How to turn a descriptive narration into a good visual (aka Cinema).

And frankly, Awi Suryadi has failed. Not 100%, but I don't see any emotion in this movie as when I read the original story. While it's good to tell A-Z in the writing format, but it lost the impact when it turned into a motion picture. Looks like he just put everything the story and the lines of the original twitter's thread into 2 hours visual without the details and plot, so it looks dull.

Good side; thumbs up for the cinematography & production crew who brought the village alive. The actors/actress also did a good job, especially Tissa Biani (Nur).

Cinematography and the casts were amazing, the whole setting and mood is spot on. But if you're a horror movie fanatic, this movie lacks on the jump scares and there were many apparent plot holes. The narrative was excruciatingly long (it felt like i was reading from the twitter thread itself) and had many unnecessary details. Kinda felt it was overhyped and truly expected more. The ending was very anti-climatic.

Adapting books (or in this case a Twitter thread), especially the popular ones, into a film can be tricky. The urge to satisfy the fans can lead to a dissatisfying result. KKN Di Desa Penari falls in this category. Instead of making a tighter plot point, the film tends to adapt its source material in a literal manner. As a result, the film suffers from an overlong narrative and somewhat wanders aimlessly for most of its runtime. Still enjoyable, but could be better.