WHAT HAPPENED WHEN // A FILM REVIEW OF “sMOTHERed”
BY MATEO MORENO
A truly great horror film creates a world that feels like it’s crawling up your skin as you watch it. Where ever jump you feel in your bones, every slow turn around a corner burns into your soul. And you feel yourself leaning further and further into the world. The new Shudder original sMOTHERed is a pretty perfect example of what a truly great horror film can do, at least throughout the very effective first half. The tension is incredibly high, and the oh-so-tense atmosphere is expertly displayed. Not that the second half of the film is terrible, it isn’t. But it does develop into another sort of film and loses the momentum and good will that the beginning started with. Rio Dewanto plays Alif, an artist in the Indonesian city of Jakarta. He’s recovering from a terrible car accident which has left him with partial amnesia. He remembers who his wife and kid are (Faradina Mufti plays the wife and Jordan Omar is his child) but he doesn’t remember what kind of person he was and he remembers next to nothing about his own childhood. Almost immediately after he returns home to start his recovery, he receives a visit from his mother Aminah (Vonny Anggraini), who he apparently hasn’t seen since he was a teenager. She’s never met her daughter-in-law or her grandson and is excited to make up on lost time. Alif is thrown for a loop emotionally; he doesn’t even recognize her face. He’s ashamed and disoriented. But Aminah jumps right into caring for the family, cooking food and sharing a homebrew healing recipe for Alif’s constant nosebleeds.
Alif also has found out that he and his wife were going through a very rough patch and that this may be the beginning of a “fresh start,” and to do better than he did the first time around. However, he begins to have strange visions and discovers some unsettling drawings he made as a child locked up inside his room. Everything starts to feel more and more bizarre and he begins to doubt his own reality, not knowing what might be a memory or what’s happening right in front of him. Even more so, he starts to think that perhaps his mother isn’t quite who she says she is. Directing duo Kevin Rahardjo and Rafki Hidayat expertly create a chilling and unsettling atmosphere from the beginning, throwing us into Alif’s confused state and only letting us learn when he does. It’s beautifully shot and the tension around every one of Alif’s decisions is full of nail-biting tension. However, the choice to make the second half of the film loses that early confusion and tension and turn into a crime film is a confusing one and ends up making the film feel rather disjointed. Tonally, it feels like two different films and the beginning half is far superior to the latter. The horrific ending also feels rushed and not fully fleshed out, which is a shame because this story is so strong. Vonny Angraini gives a chilling and powerful performance throughout and anchors the film in a claustrophobic winning performance. The rest of the cast are all uniformly good too. Even with the uneven back end, sMOTHERed is quite a unique and surreal film, one that I can still definitely recommend, even if the latter half will take some patience to fully digest.
GRADE: B
WRITTEN BY Joko Anwar, Aline Djayasukmana, and Rafki Hidayat DIRECTED BY Kevin Rahardjo and Rafki Hidayat STARRING Rio Dewanto, Faradina Mufti, Vonny Anggraini, Jordan Omar, Sulthan Hamonangan, Gambit Saifullah, Nova Eliza, Tony Merle NOW STREAMING ON SHUDDER