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When your film has such a delicious pun for a title, you’d better make sure that the movie itself can match it for wit – but rest assured that Ghost In The Cell manages to live up to such a steep task, and them some. Directed by Joko Anwar, who is probably most famous for 2019’s Shudder offering, Impetigore, this prison-set horror/comedy initially seems to be the latest example of jaw-dropping brutality that tends to come out of Indonesia on a regular basis theses days (have you seen any of their action films recently? Jesus Christ!). However, on closer inspection, this incredibly eccentric flick seems to have some a bit more to say rather than seeing the human body go through incredible amounts of trauma.
Riffing on the incarcerated insanity of Lam Ngai Kai’s Riki-Oh: The Story Of Ricky, while adding the sadistic slap stick of Sam Raimi at his most silliest/nastiest, prepare to be imprisoned within one of the best – and most surprising – horror comedies of the year.
Welcome to Labuhan Angsana Prison, a place where hardened criminals and political prisoners serve hard time living with oppressive guards and a high chance of getting violently attacked or molested by the less civilised inmates. Within the various groups or gangs that has formed, we meet Anggoro, a man with a strong moral centre, who keeps getting time added onto his sentence thanks to his habit of defending other inmates from the guards. In his group are the sickly Six, devout Muslim, Wildan, ex professor Pendi, and their friend, Irfan. But as they try to keep their heads down and avoid the various psychos working for an imprisoned crime boss, the equilibrium of the prison noticably changes when a new inmate, Dimas, arrives, who used to be a journalist but was arrested for allegedly grotesquely mutilating his boss. Of course, we know he’s innocent of the grisly crime, but his appearance sets of a bizarre chain of events that get progressively weirder as they continue.
It seems that a particularly mean-spirited ghost has found itself haunting the prison and selecting various victims to rip to shreds and display their mangled bodies in some sort of ghastly tableaux. However, while the first few casualties seem fairly random, Six suddenly hits upon a theory when his illness suddenly clears up and he discovers that his has special powers. Able to see people’s auras, it seems that anyone sporting a red glow that indicates they are angry, or negative is fair game for the violent spirit and it will target the most negative human it can find within the prison to virtually liquidate with it’s supernatural anger.
Discovering that they can change their auras into more protective colours through prayer, art or dancing, Anggoro and his group attempt to try and figure out this freakish mystery while trying to keep a positive attitude on things. But how the hell can you keep an optimistic mindset when you have to fight off rival inmates, sadistic guards, or a ghost that’ll turn your cranium into a shower head if you’re not thinking happy thoughts.
While the stage is set for a devestating gorefest, much in the same vein of Timo Tjahjanto’s May The Devil Take You movies, Joko Anwar instead manages to equip his prison horror with a surprising amount of lighter moments to counteract some energetically heavy-handed splatter. Oh certainly, the ghost that’s infiltrates the prison institution rips people into pieces like paper dolls, but while vaguely similar fare, such as Kim Hong-sun’s Project Wolf Hunter, focused fully on the bloody brutality, it’s Anwar’s dedication to the funny suff that makes the bizarrely perky Ghost In The Cell leap out from the crowd. That’s not to say watching a tattooed pervert suddenly confront a ghostly doppelgänger with shocking skin quality (this is not a film for trypophobes, that’s for fucking sure), and then get spectacularly mulched isn’t the height of enjoyment – but the film enjoyably takes things a little further than just relying on frenzied gore.
For a start, while the use of the Muslim religion as a major plot point may initially seem a little strange, it not only throws a little satire into the mix, but establishes some solid ground rules for the ghost that adds some genuinely interesting wrinkles. For a start, the fact that Six is the one who can see auras despite being the least religious person in the prison means that his visions have to be interpreted by someone with much more faith, and the fact that the ghost only mutilates the most unhappy members means that everyone else is scrabbling to gain enlightenment and inner peace in the fastest way possible. It’s here that the film finds it most daffy moments, with the various high-stakes happenings given an extra twist thanks to these rules we’ve been given. When our heroes have discovered that some of the prisoners have locked themselves into the the prayer room to keep themselves safe, everyone else has no option but to go to the dance classes being held next door to clumsily learn sassy routines that might just save their lives. Similarly, when Anggoro is forced to fight against the enforcer of a crime group, both have to take alternate breaks to heal their aura lest the ghost takes them, which leaves their opponent to throw in hilarious cheap shots while the other is left defenseless as they dance or pray.
It’s rare that such an injection of religion helps with the comedy to a ludicrous degree, but aside from framing Islam in ways that aid against the forces of evil much in the same way that Christian iconography holds vampires at bay or expells demons in an exorcism, it adds a rather endearing sense of sweetness that give the film a rather unique sensibility in the realms of Indonesian bloodshed. Although sweet maybe an odd word to describe a movie that sees a human being turned into an elaborate shower ornament and features comedy setpieces about the dangers of picking up the soap in the prison showers.
Nicely slotting itself into the same cell block as the likes of The Evil Dead and some of the earlier Peter Jackson gore comedies, it’s to everyone’s credit that such a nasty, silly film actually contains a little bit of political gravitas too. Working alongside the threads that playfully deal with religion are multiple aspects that bring up political corruption in Indonesia, and it’s no accident that a sizable cross section of the inmates have been jailed for standing in the way of shady business practices. In fact, it’s an illegal nickle mining operation in Borneo (the original story Dimas was covering) that kicks everything off in the first place. Obviously, further messages about prisoners still being human beings despite their legal status and inhuman living conditions is slightly nullified by also having at least one of their number being portrayed as a heavily tattooed, rape-happy maniac who leers at everyone he meets. But for the most part, Ghost In The Cell has the good stuff locked down tight.
Containing a warm heart to go with all that hot blood, and a funny bone to go with all those body parts, Ghost In The Cell proves to be something of a sinew snapping surprise. Plentiful gore and laughs tee you up while more deeper emotions helps nail that sweet spot between churning stomachs and belly laughs.
