Quality Acting in Silly Lentera Merah Horror Movie

In the Lentera Merah movie (Indonesian), a scene shows the side profile of a book being pushed off the shelf seen from the left side of the movie camera. It is not really scary up to until a hand comes out of a book shelf. Surprise! The director similarly uses the left side of the movie camera for another scene where the lamp suddenly lights up. Placing the lamp off is insignificant & not shown or probably even edited out of the movie before the release. The ghost lady with the lamp haunts the university & kills people. The killings of the Lentera Merah journalists are not without its clues. The ghost is also not as scary as it should be in the Lentera Merah movie. You may notice that the Lentera Merah movie is banking hard on a suspenseful storyline, cliché electronics going on & off, the characters haunting cries, & abstruse facial expressions for its horror content.

It is strange how Risa (Laudya Cynthia Bella) knows a lot about the hidden clues of the new member's annual ritual night. Obviously, as you may suspect in the middle of the movie, she could even have had something to do with the haunting events & student killings. The repetitious falling of books, mundane ghosts, haunting hands & other haunting tricks are becoming a boring drag in the Lentera Merah movie, being used over & over again. Thanks to some quality acting & good background music, the Lentera Merah movie saves itself from being simply unbearable to watch. Risa is the ghost & she killed the students in order to protect her identity. How barbaric! Also, you may realize that the frequent left to right elements in the scenes (mentioned in the beginning paragraph) is inappropriately representing the left wing university intellectuals. Either I am speculating out of my wits now or the Lentera Merah movie is just churning out lame left wing ideology representations!

It began in 1965 where the capitalism & communism idealisms swept the university & influenced most students. Risa was accused of being a communist supporter & placed in the store room. She unfortunately died of a heat stroke. She came back for revenge in 2006 because she died on the 20th of June (20 & 06 which is June). Do you smell cheese? Then, how about 1965? Please excuse us viewer's acute attention to detail! The Lentera Merah has lame story details but quality acting nonetheless. Special effects are minimal & virtually non existent but are skillfully applied when used. Alone & his friend all dead, Iqbal (Dimas Beck) decides to go traveling around the world with only his backpack & undisclosed financial sources. Maybe he is going to work on a cargo ship, it's a mystery; probably the most mysterious thing in the movie! What a joke to be added to the list of lame story details of the Lentera Merah movie! Also, it seems the ghost; Risa is returning, flipping the portrait of Iqbal's parents over in a fit of presumed jealousy. Did I mention that the ghost had a relationship with Iqbal's dad in the university before she died?

The movie boils down to the question whether it is socially acceptable to decline a person the right for burial only because the person's preference in social ideology? The blundering unintelligent Lentera Merah Journalist students of 1965 can be successful in exasperating spectator intelligence! Easily, they could have reported her death to the police without being prosecuted! Then again, there would be no Lentera Merah movie. Oh, yes; the Lentera Merah movie; a product of silly university students who panicked & avoided responsibility for their actions. One thing is for sure, the Lentera Merah movie deserves a permanent ending without the hope of seeing the light of a sequel. Can you stand silliness in non comedy movies? I can, it's why I watched the movie till the end! A sequel of the Lentera Merah movie is not expected as a jealous ghost is hardly a sound basis for a good horror movie. It's just not scary enough! On the other hand it could do nicely with better story details that actually make some sense. Finally, the Lentera Merah movie could be a good project made by film students, judging from its minimal special effects & elaborate storyline that is in dire need of polishing.