The Elixir is a 2025 Indonesian zombie film, directed by Kimo Stamboel and the cast includes Mikha Tambayong, Eva Celia, Donny Damara, and Marthino Lio.
My Thoughts on The Elixir
Every year around Halloween, I try to find at least one new zombie movie to throw into the mix, as it’s like a seasonal ritual at this point, and even when I know most of them follow the same pattern, I still go in hoping one of them might do something different.
The idea behind The Elixir, sounded slightly different, where a dysfunctional family accidentally invents a formula that turns people into zombies, certainly not revolutionary, but you never know.
The Elixir is a quite loud, messy film, that is full of energy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a zombie film, but the chaos here starts to overwhelm everything else pretty quickly, and becomes quite a frustrating watch.
I wanted to know more about the family, what their lives were like before everything went wrong, maybe a bit about why this elixir existed in the first place, but the movie rushes past all that to get to the blood and screaming.
To be fair, that part is done quite well though, where the practical effects are impressive, and the zombies actually look decent enough. and for anyone watching just to see a few wild kills, it’s probably satisfying.
The problem is, once you’ve seen the first couple of attacks, it becomes clear that’s all the movie really has to offer, as it’s just one noisy disaster after another, and every time the characters find temporary safety, they do something incredibly stupid to lose it again.
I don’t mind watching flawed characters - in horror, that’s half the fun sometimes - but I do need them to at least behave like people trying to survive, but in The Elixir, everyone seems to have the survival instincts of a potato.
But, it's also worth saying I don’t think the movie was made with complete seriousness in mind, and there’s an almost slapstick quality to some of the chaos, but then it switches back to dramatic moments so abruptly that I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel or what tone they were going for, because it jumps between campy and tragic without ever finding a comfortable middle ground.
I also found myself wanting to know more about the science behind the elixir, as there’s this interesting setup about a “miracle drug,” but the story never digs into what it’s supposed to do or how it went so wrong, and it could’ve been a great opportunity for some commentary, but the movie just skips past all that.
But at least it all does move fast enough though that you don’t have much time to dwell on its flaws while watching it, and some some of the performances were decent given the material as well.
Donny Damara brings a bit of gravitas to the chaos, and Mikha Tambayong manages to ground a few scenes that might have otherwise felt too over the top, and while I wouldn’t say the acting saves the movie, but it keeps it from falling apart completely.
What The Elixir really struggles with, though, is pacing, as t’s a nonstop parade of yelling, running, and zombies breaking through windows, and without contrast, the noise starts to blend together, and the film loses any sense of rhythm, where it all starts to feel repetitive.
The story just ends up circling back to the same patterns constantly, and there’s no real escalation, no shift in tone or strategy, and the movie ends exactly the way it plays for most of its runtime: loud, bloody, and hollow.
I did have some fun with it, mostly because I enjoy the genre, and I even appreciated some of its rough edges, but it's a film that it doesn’t know what it wants to be, and if it had taken a few more creative risks, and explored more of the story, it could have been a lot more than just a very surface level film.
But if you’re just looking for a quick distraction on a Friday night on Netflix, this might scratch that itch.
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