The film is about a group of college students who go to a remote Javanese village to perform the student study service
(kuliah kerja nyata, or KKN for short), a mandatory community service that all undergraduate college students must do before they write their theses. However, they quickly learn that the village is holding a dark secret, made worse by the fact that some of them are not honoring its rules.
The film was one of the many victims of the COVID-19 Pandemic's impact on the entertainment industry; principal photography had finished in early 2020, but the pandemic delayed post-production for months. Although cinemas reopened in October 2020, the production house decided to wait until the pandemic subsided so it would not negatively impact the film's performance. The strategy paid off massively; it became an industry behemoth, receiving over 2 million admissions and easily recouping its budget within a week of its release, and continuing to reign over the box office for weeks on end. By the end of its original run, it had raked in 9.2 million admissions, making it the highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time, beating second-place Warkop DKI Reborn: Jangkrik Boss! Part 1 (6.8 million) by an extremely wide margin. Its success ushered in the recovery of the Indonesian cinema, after the pandemic dealt a massive blow to it.
During its original run, there existed two versions of the film: a 13+ one, and the Uncut version, which added several erotic scenes and was rated 17+. Following its box office success, MD Pictures issued an extended version subtitled Luwih Dowo, Luwih Medeni ("Longer, Scarier") on 29 December 2022, which added 33 minutes worth of new material, plus a preview of fellow SimpleMan film adaptation Sewu Dino. The rerun reportedly raked in 800,000 admissions.
Tropes
- And I Must Scream: The fates of Bima and Ayu by the end of the film. Their souls are trapped in the spirit world, with Bima being forced to bathe together with his snake children, and Ayu to dance for eternity. Both eventually die from it, though Ayu takes longer to expire, likely because unlike Bima, she did her crimes willingly.
- Big Bad: Badarawuhi, the ancient spirit of a dancer who rules over the village.
- Cerebus Call-Back: Early in the film, Wahyu teases Widya by saying that she has a fragrant smell. This bit is referenced in the climax of the film, when Badarawuhi tells Widya, after trapping her in Angkoromurko, that she has a fragrant smell.
- Dark Is Not Evil:
- Mbah Buyut is a witch doctor who dresses creepily and makes some odd expressions at the students, but he genuinely warns them about the dangers of the village, and later rescues Widya when she is trapped in the spirit world.
- Nur's guardian angel is an old woman named Mbah Dok, who wears dirty traditional clothing, has Prophet Eyes, and is unpleasant to look at in general. Despite this, she protects Nur from danger.
- Deal with the Devil: Ayu makes a deal with Badarawuhi by furthering the latter's plans to make Widya her successor as Dawu, in return for Ayu to have sex with Bima.
- Don't Go in the Woods:
- The village has a forbidden forest called Tapak Tilas, which contains an abandoned Javanese pavilion and a spring. Naturally, some of the students break the rules and head there.
- When Widya and Wahyu's motorbike breaks down, they unwittingly stumble upon a feast held in the middle of nowhere, with dancers providing entertainment. But when they return back to the village, it turns out that they have been fed dead monkey meat.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted. Ayu essentially rapes Bima when she makes a deal with Badarawuhi so she can have sex with him. Since his expression is blank the entire time she makes out with and savors his body, it is clear that he is doing it against his will. This is not presented as a good thing.
- Downer Ending: Not only the KKN is a failure, but Bima and Ayu end up dying because of the things they did in the village, and the rest of their friends are obviously traumatized by it.
- Dying Town: There are no young people in the village. While it is not confirmed, Nur speculates that, with how backwards the village is, all of them might have left it as soon as they had the means to do so.
- Fan Disservice: Handsome Bima has three nude scenes in the film. All of them against his will. The first time, he is entranced and forced to have sex with Ayu. The second time, he looks fornlornly as his snake children trap him in a spring. The third time, his soul has left his body, causing him to slowly die with a horrified look on his face.
- Fanservice: Widya has a shower scene, Ayu strips naked before she makes out with Bima (and unlike him, she is fully conscious), and the dancer spirit is seen topless from the back at one point in the film.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The students consist of three boys (Bima, Wahyu, and Anton) and three girls (Nur, Widya, and Ayu).
- Guardian Angel: Nur has one, the spirit of her ancestor named Mbah Dok.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The extended version assumes that you have seen the original, since it opens with Nur giving a monologue that mentions the deaths of Bima and Ayu.
- Meaningful Background Event: When Widya and Wahyu are leaving the strange feast they see in the forest, the onlookers can be seen slowly turning to stare at them.
- Mockumentary: Downplayed. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Nur and Widya are retelling their experiences in the village as part of a documentary, though before then the film has a normal storytelling. The extended version highlights this aspect more.
- Outliving One's Offspring: In the extended version, Bima's lifeless body is mourned by his parents, and Ayu's by her mother and brother.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Wahyu is the class clown, and regularly cracks jokes for his friends' amusement.
- Sex Equals Death: Bima and Ayu are cursed by Badarawuhi because they had broken the village's rules by having sex inside Tapak Tilas, and are trapped in Angkoromurko forever.
- Shower Scene: There is one with Widya near the beginning. Nur is supposed to shower as well, but she only manages to take off her hijab before the ghost appears and she chickens out of the bathhouse.
- Snakes Are Sinister: The dancer spirit has a snake circling over her, Nur once sees Widya dancing with a snake around her neck, and the villagers break into the students' house because they think they see a snake in it. Bima also dreams of Badarawuhi trapping Widya with a snake the first night in the village. After having sex with him, Badarawuhi gives birth to snake children who trap Bima in Angkoromurko.
- Token Religious Teammate: Nur wears a hijab and regularly prays while doing the KKN. Bima is implied to be just as religious as Nur before he steps in the village, which takes his faith away.
- Too Dumb to Live: Ayu, who not only thinks it's a good idea to have non-marital sex in a backwards, traditional village, but decides to do it in a sacred place that the village head has explicitly forbidden her to go in, let alone do smut in it. While Bima has his flaws, he worships Badarawuhi out of a (misguided) sense of duty. Meanwhile, Ayu willingly breaks the rules because it will satisfy her. Unsurprisingly, she suffers the worse fate of the two.
- Town with a Dark Secret: The titular village regularly makes offerings to the spirits, has a cemetery with tombstones covered by dark cloths, and has a fenced-off forest called Tapak Tilas, whose entry is forbidden by anyone. Back in the day, the village sacrificed women to become spiritual dancers, the so-called Dawu, to Badarawuhi, who resides in Tapak Tilas. Their gravestones are the ones covered in dark cloths. While the village eventually abandoned the custom, Badarawuhi never forgot about it, and has been enticing outsiders to become one.
- Turn of the Millennium: The film is set in 2009.
