Revolves around siblings Hanif and Isti returning to their hometown after their uncle’s death, where they experience supernatural events involving his reappearance.

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Introduction

Sorop was a good watch, well… it started out good. Main reason why I got interested and decided to watch this was because of the movie poster that was used by Netflix, it was fantastically made. I don’t look at ratings and cast before I watch a movie, so it was a nice surprise to see Hana Prinantina (The Train of Death) and Yasamin Jasem (Temurun) teaming up together. Directed by Upi Avianto (Shackled 2012, Sri Asih 2022, Till Death Do Us Part 2024). The movies is based on a viral thread on Indonesian X (Twitter) by user SimpleMan.

The story revolves around two siblings, Hanif and Isti, returning to their hometown after their names were repeatedly called out by their dying uncle. After the burial, they experienced supernatural occurrences involving their uncle’s constant reappearance.

Characters

Like I said, it was good to see Hana Prinantina and Yasamin Jasem teaming up together for this horror flick. As good of an actress as they are, I don’t think it was the right choice, because they don’t look that similar. Maybe its just me, but little things like these makes it more believable, when they scream for their “siblings”, it adds that much more emotional reaction from the audience. Specially those with brothers and sisters, they could relate to it more.

Egi Fedly (playing as the uncle) was effective as the deceased haunting ghost. His natural skinny body build made his character creepier. Perfect casting.

Music and sounds

The ambient music in Sorop doesn’t really help with increasing the tension of a scene, either it was poorly chosen or the timing was off. When they play a sound or a tune, it doesn’t really do anything, its just noise.

Promising start

The beginning of Sorop was okay, it had potential to be something great, but the scare factor was ruined by the constant use of the usual horror tropes. Like people crawling on ceiling, crawling on the floor while chasing someone, etc.

Mediocre effects

The makeup effects was cheaply made, it was annoying. Specially when they revealed the entity, all scare elements they had went down the drain. The main antagonist looked like a mime who vomited coal. It was stupid looking and not at all scary.

What I didn’t like

• Since the beginning I had a hunch of how its going to end. and I was right. It was very predictable.
• The scare part towards the end was too much, and it was not even scary. It was annoying. They used all sorts of horror tropes they could think of, and in my mind was “okay, next scare please.” Just finish it already.
• The siblings casting was weird, mainly because they don’t look anything alike.

Conclusion

Sorop felt dragging towards the end. Scare after scare, clearly the director wanted Sorop to have a lasting impression. If they had a great SFX and VFX behind their continuous scares, it would’ve been effective. Unfortunately, they couldn’t even do a proper scary makeup for those, they tried to rely on shock value through loud noises. If you really have nothing to watch, keep trying to find something else, this was a bit of a waste of time to be honest. I’d rather watch Sumala (2024) all over again.