The psychology of horror films is simple: it’s stimulating, through rushes of excitement or anxiety-inducing suspended tension.

Ever since the mainstream success of 1971’s Beranak Dalam Kubur, the genre has seen an uptick among Indonesian filmgoers, evident by an upward trajectory of horror movies within the country’s box office. From 2007 to 2025 alone, they make up eight out of the top fifteen most-watched theatrical releases, making great strides internationally as it graces silver screens globally.

Despite the rising popularity, there seems to be a formulaic template to what thrills Indonesian horror can offer. While Hollywood’s range of the genre boasts a multitude of subcategories—from slasher and supernatural blockbusters to gothic thrillers, gorefests, and crossovers with comedy, sci-fi, and fantasy—the library of Indonesian horror films are mostly confined to the realm of the religious and paranormal. Dominated by evil spirits and undead figures like kuntilanak and pocong, the mystical has been synonymized with Indonesian horror, making the supernatural a peripheral representation of the genre.

Movies like Pengabdi Setan (1980, 2017) and Qorin (2022) prominently feature Islamic themes in a good-versus-evil tale, similar to The Exorcist (1973) and The Conjuring (2013). Others, like Jailangkung (2017), Sewu Dino (2023), or the highest-grossing film of the domestic box office KKN di Desa Penari (2022) toy around with mystic urban legends and supernatural elements of local culture (such as black magic or traditional rituals) that echo themes in Candyman (1992) or The Blair Witch Project (1999).

But as the American film industry continues to diversify their scary offerings, why couldn’t Indonesian filmmakers do the same?

Joko Anwar, who directed and wrote the film Impetigore (2019), once said how his movies act as “social commentary [...] about whatever is happening in society at that moment.” As films are a product of culture, one look at the corresponding society reveals why. Home to the largest population of Muslims in the world, Indonesia is a nation immersed in religion and spirituality, likely stemming from animistic beliefs of the land’s native tribes, resulting in the pervasion of folklore and mythology as part of Indonesian culture.

But upon a closer look at these urban legends, there seems to be a noticeable pattern: the female victim. Popularized by films in the 80’s, many of Indonesia’s horror icons are built upon stories of female rage and revenge from beyond the grave.

Throughout its existence, Indonesian horror has always been synonymous with these themes of violence, particularly sexual violence. Among others, the most immediate examples in popular mythology can be seen in sundel bolong, suster ngesot, and kuntilanak, all of which find their origins in stories of sexual violence against women. Historically, the genre has always found its popularity the most in stories antagonizing women and sexuality, including expressions of its desire, which begs the question as to where the audience’s thirst for this content came from.

It is said that the popularity of these horror tropes reflects the current reality at present. According to the National Commission on Violence Against Women, there have been almost 800 cases of murder indicating femicide from 2020 to 2023, highlighting the prevalence of intimate femicide or murder committed by male romantic partners. Sexual violence is a major issue in Indonesia that is often swept under the rug due to the cultural stigmatization of sex, which statistically continues to occur to Indonesian women of any age group and background with nearly any effort of prevention.

As a greater indicator of what’s happening in society, the taboo of sex remains harmful and prevalent in Indonesia, despite being mainly at the expense of women.

With issues that inspired the stories of sundel bolong and kuntilanak continuing to exist, so have unlicensed abortions, as existing laws on abortion such as Article 346 of the Indonesian Criminal Code lead to more unsafe abortions to happen. With 750,000 to 1,500,000 reported abortions performed each year, around 2,500 have resulted in death, considering societal and cultural stigmas continue to play a huge role in maintaining the status quo to the point women would put their lives in danger to undergo these processes, even with the high odds of death.

And, like rubbing salt on the wound, many films err on the side of exploiting these sexual taboos that continue to position women as victims—which, in some cases, are based on real-life horror stories of sexual assault. Nevertheless, the Indonesian society’s stance on sexual assault remains staunchly rooted in victim-blaming through demands of domestication and modesty from women (not unlike the core premise of the American slasher’s ”final girl” trope of the early aughts). And, when not blamed, these victims are sensationalized, or even at times, turned into folklore stories that we all know and love.

Horror continues to be a pillar of the film industry, continuing to prove itself with American franchises churning out installment after installment while local studios keep finding new ways to revitalize familiar ghosts and folklore.

As filmmakers like Joko Anwar and Timo Tjahjanto start reinventing the wheels of Indonesian horror films with Siksa Kubur (2024) and shorts in the V/H/S franchise, maybe it’s due time for the genre's landscape to leave some old tropes undisturbed in its grave.