Sumpahan Jerunei

Like, Arjuna? Really? You couldn't come up with a common name? Dude didn't even get a nick name, and everyone actually called him Arjuna? Don't even get me started with the soulless, unrealistic script that renders the acting robotic af. Dr. Sani was introduced to the audience with, "you wanted me to waste time on assumptions?" As an academic, he should know that all scientific inquiries are driven by assumptions-it is called hypothesis-making, dumbass. And Uqasha Senrose is basically a driftwood piled up into a drift by the heavily contrived dialogues. Whoever is the scriptwriter really needs to take a class in creative writing and not skip a single lesson.

Needless to say that I had actually never heard about this 2023 Malaysian horror movie titled "Sumpahan Jerunei" (aka "Curse of The Jerunei") prior to sitting down to watch it. I stumbled upon it by random luck here in 2024, and with it being a horror movie, of course I had to watch it. Writers Jason Chong and Sky Khor put together a script and storyline that made very little sense, and it felt like I watching something that the two writers had written independently of one another, and the director Jason Chong had to fit the two scripts together to make one story. Yeah, I wasn't impressed with "Sumpahan Jerunei", and it was quite an ordeal to sit through the movie, because the narrative was sluggish and it just made very little sense. Given my fairly limited exposure to Malaysian cinema, then I wasn't familiar with the actors and actresses on the cast list. The acting performances were fair enough, but I can't claim that I was overly impressed with what I saw. But then again, the bland and boring script sucked away the will to watch the movie and get submerged into the pointless storyline, and I am sure that played a part on the opinion of the performances. This is not a horror movie that I would recommend to fans of the Asian horror scene. I was sorely disappointed with what the writers delivered here. Director Jason Chong makes use of a lot of generic horror tropes and cheap jump scares that you see coming a mile away. And even with a mere 105 minute runtime, "Sumpahan Jerunei" felt more like a 240 minute movie. Yup, it was that slow paced. My rating of "Sumpahan Jerunei" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.