The Thirtieth Night of Halloween: Impetigore

ON THE THIRTIETH NIGHT OF HALLOWEEN … I watched Impetigore (2019), an Indonesian horror film by Joko Anwar. A machete-wielding maniac attacks a tollbooth operator named Maya. He accuses her of murdering babies. Just before the police gun him down, the maniac gives Maya the name of a village. This clue prompts Maya to undertake an investigation into her past. She travels to the isolated and morose woodland village that, as it turns out, she was taken from as a small child, after her birth parents both died. Today this village has no children. It seems that all the babies born here must be euthanized. For some reason, Maya’s father, his shadow puppets, and the circumstances of Maya’s birth are blamed for this curse. Soon, the village matriarch convinces the other villagers that their salvation lies in ritually sacrificing Maya.

I really enjoyed how Impetigore uses rich details to build toward the core mystery’s skin-crawling solution. We learn early on that there is a connection between Maya’s childhood and the condition afflicting the village’s infants, a condition so hideous that they must be drowned immediately upon birth. We also implicitly understand that we will only learn what this connection is by witnessing Maya uncover it firsthand. Thus, there is a setup for a reveal that we both desire and dread. Just as when we crane our necks to look at a car crash but simultaneously squint our eyes in anticipation of what we may see—so here, we are tugged in opposite directions by our curiosity and our squeamishness, both on our own behalf and on behalf of Maya. And the film executes on this setup and reveal structure flawlessly, giving us enough time to savor the sickening implications of every piece it lays down without wasting a moment on mere filler. The cinematography is as lush as a traditional Balinese painting and the dialog is full of humanizing color. But all of the film’s many assets are in service of its central question and answer, which is potent enough to make one squirm long after one learns what it is. Which is to say, Impetigore is impeccable at creating one of the finest forms of fear that horror cinema has to offer, so I hope it continues to garner international acclaim.