Overall, there’s a lot to love here
Story
Soriya returns to Cambodia in search of herself after her mother’s death, only to find a family she never knew and an old building full of dark secrets. After her mother’s death, a Japanese-Cambodian manga artist and her boyfriend decide to travel to Cambodia to learn more about her past, but when she encounters strange events within the building that hint that something darker is afoot, the residents must stop it before it spreads. One of the stronger features is the genuinely enjoyable and immersive setting that has many interconnected parts that come together quite well.
This leads to a fantastic sense of looming fear the longer the two remain in the community with the increasing danger leading to more excitement
Starting with the backstory of her mother dying under mysterious circumstances while living in a community she’s long since estranged from, this provides a means to establish her motives for returning, as well as providing ample knowledge of their mutual backgrounds. Since we’re aware of the relationship presented and how it affects her, the desire to reconnect with everyone once she manages to uncover the cause is a natural part of their reunion. It also makes the presence of the community’s behaviors and rituals a perfect fit to enhance this type of story by appearing as unusual customs before gradually becoming darker and more sinister.
This setup helps make the film much more entertaining once the sinister instincts start to materialize
With the restrained nature of the community’s good-natured, if slightly uneven behavior or just noticing the ritualistic decorations left behind, this is nice enough to serve the film until later in the more overt sequences where she’s left alone in the apartment. The big sequence plays out as a form of bizarre meal preparation with her family members gathered and others she’s met in the community performing what seems like a ritual ceremony designed to prepare her for a special occult ritual that quickly turns into a nightmare fever dream where she can’t tell the difference between her dream and reality is quite impressive. It kicks off the rest of this into a much darker genre effort that includes a few revelations about the visions she’s been experiencing, leading to a wild finale where the dark origins of the ceremony are revealed as it’s all about infusing a new spirit into the host’s body which is again more modest than expected but still has some generally creepy visuals and chases around the complex.
One of the main factors here is the feeling of confusion as very little is explained
All of this brings a lot to like here as while there aren’t too many flaws here, there are still some issues that arise. Since the first half is much more sinister and covert than anything else, there’s not much way to figure out what’s going on, instead staying focused on the haunting atmosphere of the building as well as their sinister behavior which is almost exclusively fear-mongering. As a result, almost nothing is revealed about what the community is trying to do, what their ritual entails or how it’s supposed to be carried out, so very little is mentioned.
Rated Unrated/R: Violence and language
It’s only at the end that it all comes together, so there’s the potential for this to be a bit confusing at first to get into what’s going on. Another shame is that this setup also makes for a rather slow first half and very little happens other than setting up the stories that pay off at the end, so it takes a while to come to fruition. These are a few of the minor flaws shown with this.