This atmospheric and grisly horror movie from Malaysia sees a single mother and her children rattled by the arrival of mysterious strangers.
When a ghoulish little girl caked in mud suddenly appears near the isolated hut of a single mother, Mak (Farah Ahmad), and her two children living in the Malaysian jungle, things take a turn for the sinister. Not that the family — impoverished and in denial of their father’s death — was doing particularly well before the arrival of the lost child, who rattles them with a morbid prophecy then slashes her own throat within the first fifteen minutes.
Emir Ezwan’s feature directing debut, “Roh,” which translates to “soul” in Malaysian, belongs to a wave of homegrown, folklore-inspired horror films taking Southeast Asia by storm (see “Two Sisters,” also from Malaysia, or “Satan’s Slaves,” from Indonesia).
A grisly ghost story set against a backdrop of scraggly, claustrophobic vegetation given an eerie vibrancy by the cinematographer Saifuddin Musa, “Roh” isn’t big on the details. The story unfolds at some unspecified point in the past as a distant war rages on, and Ezwan relies on vivid imagery — burning trees, mushy piles of blood — over a concrete narrative, which renders the entry of two additional strangers disorientingly opaque if acutely unsettling.
As the indeterminate evil spreads, Mak’s children take cues from “The Exorcist” and a beguiling neighbor begins to wield inordinate levels of influence over the increasingly aghast mother. Symbolism overshadows characterization, or any sense of motive for that matter, nevertheless “Roh” succeeds as a spine-tingling baffler, hitting at nerves we can’t quite articulate but feel all the same.
Roh
Not rated. In Malay, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. On virtual cinemas and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
