Gone are the days when Indonesian horror meant cheap thrills, recycled kuntilanak (female vampire ghost) tropes, and predictable sound cues. Over the past two years, the genre has undergone a radical transformation. Today’s Indonesian horror is smart, culturally rooted, visually stunning, and increasingly global.

Here is the updated lowdown on what’s haunting Indonesian cinemas right now.

The Buzz: Directed by Sidharta Tata, this film broke records at the Busan International Film Festival. Why watch? Unlike the "jump-scare-a-minute" style, Respati is a slow-burn occult thriller about a teenager who can enter people’s dreams. It draws heavy parallels to The Wailing (South Korea) but substitutes Korean shamanism with Javanese Kejawen mysticism. The visual depiction of nightmares in a rural boarding school is hauntingly beautiful.

The most significant update is the repurposing of folklore. Films no longer feature ghosts solely for scares; they function as metaphors for societal illness.