TL;DR: Sumala is a watchable Indonesian horror film about a cursed set of kids, where one grows up broken by abuse and the other comes back from the dead for revenge - it’s worth it if you like supernatural revenge stories and don’t mind some uneven acting, shaky effects, and a few unintentionally funny moments.
A Village, a Bad Deal, and Things Going Downhill Fast
Sumala starts off with a decision so obviously terrible that you almost want to pause the film and ask, “really?” A woman, Sulastri, desperate for a child, ends up making a deal through a shaman, and like most deals involving dark forces, it doesn’t come with fine print, but it probably should.
She gives birth to twin girls, and from that moment, things are already uncomfortable where one child is born with a disability, the other is seen as something far worse, an the father reacts in a way that’s hard to even sit with, he gets rid of the “problem” child, as if that solves anything in a story literally built on consequences.
The surviving twin, Kumala, grows up in a home where she is treated like an inconvenience at best, and a punishment at worst, and the village isn’t much better either, as everyone seems to have agreed, without saying it out loud, that this child is not worth kindness.
It’s uncomfortable to watch, not because it’s subtle, but because it isn’t - the cruelty is constant, almost routine - and that’s where I started to lose some patience with the adults in this story, because there’s only so much watching people behave terribly before you stop thinking “this is tragic” and start thinking “are you all okay in the head”?
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The Ghost Story Finally Shows Up, and Things Shift
The film doesn’t really hide where it’s going, so you can probably predict what happens, and when the dead twin, Sumala, comes back, she comes back with revenge in mind - very direct, very personal, and very messy.
What I did like here though is that the movie doesn’t try too hard to pretend she’s some mysterious force you’re supposed to figure out, as she is what she is, a consequence with a face, and in a strange way, that makes her easier to understand than most of the living characters.
When she starts acting on the village, the tone of the film changes completely, so people who spent years ignoring a suffering child suddenly become very interested in survival, funny how that works, and
there was part of me that expected the film to soften at this point, maybe add some moral confusion or hesitation, but it doesn’t really bother - Sumala does what she came back to do, and the film mostly lets her do it.
Makayla Rose Hilli
Makayla Rose Hilli is easily the strongest reason to keep watching this film, as she plays both Kumala and Sumala, and she handles this really well, especially for such a young actress.
As Kumala, she’s quiet, withdrawn, and constantly reacting to a world that refuses to treat her like a person, and as Sumala, she flips into something colder, more controlled, and controlled in a way that most of the adult cast never quite manages.
There are scenes where she shares the screen with experienced actors, and instead of blending in, she ends up taking the scene completely, where she just outperforms them, and it’s not even close.
Luna Maya and Darius Sinathrya play the parents, and I spent a lot of their scenes wondering if they were meant to be this flat or if that was just how it came out, as there’s a lot of staring, a lot of serious faces, and not much emotional range in between.
The father especially comes across like he made a series of life decisions without ever considering the possibility that he might be wrong, which, to be fair, matches his actions, but doesn’t always translate into interesting drama.
The mother mostly exists in reaction mode, watching things happen rather than affecting them, so after a while, I stopped expecting her to step in at any point, and while it’s not that they are unwatchable, it’s more that they never quite rise above being functional for the plot, meanwhile, the child actor is out here doing actual emotional work.
Horror, Violence, and a Bit of Overdoing It
The film leans heavily into violent moments once Sumala starts her revenge plot, and some of these scenes are striking in concept, especially the more staged and theatrical kills, which look like they were designed first as visual ideas and then connected to a story later.
There’s one scene in particular that is so deliberately arranged that it almost stops being scary and becomes more like watching someone set up a very dark piece of performance art, so I can’t pretend I wasn’t slightly impressed, even if it felt a bit much.
But the biggest issue here was that the visual effects don’t always hold up - blood and injuries often look like they were added after the fact with limited care, and it takes away from moments that should hit harder - so instead of feeling disturbing, some scenes end up feeling a bit artificial, which is not ideal when the movie is trying to be intense.
Under all the revenge and supernatural elements though, there’s a simple idea running through the film - a child is mistreated for years, ignored, punished, and broken down by the people who were supposed to protect her, and then something comes back from that damage and responds in the only way it knows how - the film doesn’t over-explain that, which is probably for the best, as when it tries to go deeper, it doesn’t always land cleanly, but the basic message is clear enough without spelling it out.
Still, I wish the film trusted its quieter moments more, as it hints at guilt, regret, and responsibility, then quickly moves back to more direct horror beats instead of sitting in those ideas, but it's a film that had its moments, even if it is nothing new, but never quite reaches the heights it maybe could have.
Final Thoughts
Sumala works best when it focuses on its central character and the damage that started everything, but it struggles whenever it relies too much on the adults or leans on effects that don’t quite match the ambition, but there’s enough here to keep it going, especially if you’re in the mood for a revenge-heavy ghost story that doesn’t waste time pretending everyone deserves forgiveness.