Director: Joko Anwar
Writer: Joko Anwar
Starring: Abimana Aryasatya, Endy Arfian, Bront Palarae, Morgan Oey, Lukman Sardi, Danang Suryonegoro
Music: Aghi Narottama, Tony Merle
Cinematography: Ical Tanjung
Editor: Joko Anwar
Country: Indonesia
Year: 2026
Runtime: 106 minutes
Joko Anwar’s Ghost in the Cell is an unusual mixture of horror, comedy, prison drama and even martial arts. On paper, throwing all of those things together sounds like it could result in a bit of a mess.
Thankfully, it works surprisingly well.
The film follows Dimas, a journalist who finds himself inside a corrupt Indonesian prison after being accused of murder. Life inside is already difficult enough, but things become considerably worse when prisoners begin dying in increasingly gruesome ways.
It soon becomes clear that something supernatural is responsible, leaving the prisoners trying to work out exactly what is happening and how they can survive it.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Ghost in the Cell was its characters. Despite the fact that many of them are prisoners who have done some pretty bad things, the film somehow manages to make a surprising number of them likeable.
Tokek was the character I found myself supporting most of all, but there are several others who are given enough personality to make you care about what happens to them. Considering how many characters the film has to deal with, I thought they were generally well developed.
This also helps the humour considerably.
Ghost in the Cell is frequently very funny, and I found much of its humour surprisingly smart and witty. It could easily have become silly for the sake of being silly, but most of the comedy feels as though it belongs in the strange world the film creates.
The film even manages to throw martial arts into the mix.
These sequences were probably the most jarring part of the film for me. Seeing characters suddenly performing elaborate martial arts moves felt slightly out of place at first. However, they didn’t really disrupt the tone because they are presented as part of the humour. The film knows how ridiculous some of this looks and has fun with it.
For the most part, the mixture of different genres works.
Where Ghost in the Cell was less successful for me was as a genuinely frightening horror film.
The prison setting does create some atmosphere, and despite spending so much time in the same location, I never found the film visually repetitive. Unfortunately, the amount of humour inevitably dampens some of the tension. It is difficult to become too unsettled when you know the film could make you laugh a few moments later.
I also didn’t find the supernatural entity particularly frightening.
Thankfully, the horror works much better when it comes to the more disturbing imagery and practical effects. This is probably where the film impressed me most visually.
The practical effects are really good, and some of the imagery is genuinely disturbing. The film isn’t afraid to get gruesome when it needs to, and the physical effects make these moments considerably more effective. Even though the entity itself didn’t scare me, the results of its attacks certainly gave the horror side of the film something memorable.
There is also quite a bit of commentary about corruption and abuses of power in Indonesia running through the story. Personally, this wasn’t something I found particularly interesting, and it remained secondary to everything else for me. I was much more invested in the characters, humour and horror.
Fortunately, there is more than enough going on elsewhere for that not to matter.
Ghost in the Cell is a strange film, but I mean that as a compliment. The combination of supernatural horror, comedy, martial arts and prison drama shouldn’t necessarily work, yet Joko Anwar somehow manages to hold most of it together.
It isn’t particularly frightening, and the martial arts sequences occasionally feel out of place, but neither issue stopped me from enjoying it.
With excellent practical effects, genuinely funny humour and a collection of surprisingly likeable and well-developed characters, Ghost in the Cell turned out to be a very entertaining horror-comedy.
Ghost in the Cell is available on Digital in the UK now, released by Blue Finch Film Releasing.