Ghost in the Cell review – Indonesian prison-slasher-satire contains the most unhinged punch-up in decades

By Phil Hoad · The Guardian Culture

Director Joko Anwar uses horror for social commentary as he skewers corruption and hypocrisy with likable silliness and raucous energy Given the 2020s horror boom, Indonesia’s prolific Joko Anwar – who has worked more often in that genre than any other – should be better known. Using horror for social commentary, as Anwar has done often in the past, this prison-slasher-satire features the kind of scabrous broadsides against injustice you see in Bong Joon-ho’s films, and Park Chan-wook’s recent No Other Choice . But in skewering the corruption and hypocrisy of the director’s native country, it has its own likable silliness and raucous energy. As the inmates keep saying: this is Indonesia, not Norway! Fitted up for the murder of his boss, who is found gutted and spreadeagled on a ceiling fan, timid investigative journalist Dimas (Endy Arfian) winds up in the slammer. But murder, immediately followed by the flamboyant flaying of the victim, dogs him wherever he goes: the prison hitman assigned to dispose of him is in turn found in the washroom rendered into flesh origami. Charismatic prison refusenik Anggoro (Abimana Aryasatya) takes Dimas under his wing; as the victims stack up, an apparently clairvoyant member of his clique called Six (Yoga Pratama) admits that all of them manifested a red aura, signifying anger, prior to dying. Continue reading...