Adapting the Prodigal Son-esque Sumatran fable Malin Kundang for a modern audience, debut filmmakers Rafki Hidayat and Kevin Rahardjo have made the unusual decision to strip much of the supernatural element from the tale in favour of a family mystery veined with a weirdly hard-edged seam of melodrama. The result is a fairly uninvolving drama that finally gathers steam in its third act, but is nowhere near as full-blooded as the other fare from Indonesia that has graced Shudder.

Alif (Rio Dewanto) is an internationally-renowned micropainter recovering from a horrific car accident. Physically, he’s healed well, but it has wiped out large chunks of his memory. Not only this, it appears the crash has altered his personality. It’s a surprise to the upbeat, affectionate Alif when his wife Nadine (Faradina Mufti) reveals that, prior to the accident, his withdrawn and sullen demeanor had put their marriage under strain. Further upheaval follows when a woman (Vonny Anggraini) claiming to be his mother arrives. Alif isn’t merely estranged from his mother, but has had no contact since he left his Western Sumatran village for Jakarta 18 years previously, and can’t even remember what she looks like. Naturally he becomes suspicious of her intentions.

For the most part, Smothered aims for uneasy family drama, drawing on fears of the cuckoo in the nest. This grounded approach is occasionally fractured by Alif suffering auditory and visual hallucinations of a woman whispering his name and a face bulging through a mosquito net as they’re strangled. He puts these down initially to the after effects of impact trauma, but as they’ve coincided with the appearance of his mother, he begins to investigate his past. In these moments, Smothered most resembles Danny and Oxide Pang‘s The Eye as a protagonist delves into vivid memories they don’t recognise as their own.

Alas, its intriguing mystery is undone by some plodding pacing; not an accusation that can normally be levelled at genre films from Indonesia. It’s even more surprising here given Joko Anwar (of Impetigore and Satan’s Slaves) is a co-writer and producer. There are hints of Impetigore here with the third act resolution centring around buried memories of childhood spent in a remote village flooding back to the surface, but unlike in that film, the sudden onslaught of revelation – impressively mean-spirited as it is – is too sudden and jolting for what has come before.

It’s possible that a little has been lost in translation. Smothered seems to have been received fairly well in its homeland, where its title Legenda Kelam Malin Kundang makes explicit its source material. Given how restrained the film is in comparison to Impetigore and Satan’s Slaves, it’s feasible that some of the cultural specificities have fallen through the gaps in out-and-out action here, and the film is a victim of what UK viewers might be expecting the film to be rather than what it actually is. That said, something has gone badly wrong when a denoument as bleak and upsetting as Alif uncovers – where memory-obliterating head trauma is probably the best thing that could have happened – elicits nothing more than a raised eyebrow.

Screening on Shudder from Fri 29 May 2026