‘The Book Of Sijjin And Illiyyin’ review: Indonesian chiller filters a possession narrative through Muslim mythology

Dir: Hadrah Daeng Ratu. Indonesia. 2025. 99mins.

When a younger lady in rural Indonesia can not bear the trauma and humiliation stemming from the petty resentments and misplaced rage of her household, she resorts to lethal black magic with middling however grisly outcomes. Director Hadrah Daeng Ratu’s horror story The Guide Of Sijjin And Illiyyin may very well be reductively described as an Indonesian The Exorcist as filtered by Muslim mythology, giving the drained sub-genre a modest, culturally particular shot within the arm.

Strikes a stability between the acquainted and the contemporary

The Guide Of Sijjin And Illiyyin is the fourth collaboration for Hadrah and author Lele Laila, which incorporates 2023’s Sijjin, the equally themed (however unconnected) remake of Alper Mestci’s 2014 Turkish chiller Siccîn. Previous to that, Laila made a reputation for herself in horror on the energy of KKN Di Desa Penari, Indonesia’s highest-grossing home movie till June of this 12 months, when it was eclipsed by the animated fantasy Jumbo. This newest work demonstrates an evolution within the pair’s filmmaking and that, along with some affecting physique horror, ought to take it a good distance on the speciality pageant circuit. The movie must also acquire traction amongst style followers and will safe the eye of a devoted streamer.

Although rote in its cinematic possession iconography – cracked lips and chalky pores and skin, otherworldly limb manipulation, demonic screeching, a holy man heroically banishing an evil entity – Hadrah and Laila additionally flip a eager eye in direction of poisonous household dynamics, in addition to our inherent duality. Irrespective of how type, religious or harmless anybody could also be, humanity is marked by a elementary means to be concurrently merciless, disbelieving or corrupt.

The title is taken from a kind of karmic ledger, an Islamic e-book that registers dangerous deeds within the Guide of Sijjin and good ones within the Guide of Illiyyin. (The tomes are named after Quranic phrases that roughly seek advice from the underworld and to paradise.) As a baby, Yuli (Firzanah Alya) watches over dinner one evening as her mom is consumed by a malevolent spirit and finally dies at its hand, alongside together with her father Satya (Eduward Manalu, additionally seen in fellow Fantasia title The Verdict). The police present up the next morning to research the disturbance, as does one other lady, Ambar (author/actress Nai Djenar Maesa Ayu), who claims to be Satya’s spouse. 

Twenty years later, Yuli (now performed by Yunita Siregar from crime collection Ratu Adil) resides and largely working for Ambar and her bitter shopkeeper daughter Laras (Dinda Kanyadewi). They by no means let Yuli overlook she is the illegitimate baby of a mistress, and make her life as disagreeable as potential when they don’t seem to be ignoring her. After Ambar passes away, Yuli reaches breaking level and visits a shaman for steering on how one can make the household – which incorporates Laras’s husband Rudi (Tarra Budiman), her pre-teen son Dean (Sulthan Hamonangan) and her pious daughter Tika (Kawai Labiba) – pay for mistreating her. The shaman makes use of black magic to summon a djinn, however it’s as much as Yuli to carry out the nightly ritual that unleashes it on her tormentors, deserving or not. The plan inevitably backfires.

For all of the speak about human nature, accountability and festering anger, it’s the scares and gore that make or break a horror movie – and, on that entrance The Guide Of Sijjin And Illiyyin doesn’t disappoint. Laras’s store assistant meets a destiny that may not be misplaced in a Remaining Vacation spot movie, and the decaying corpse over which Yuli casts her spells has an olfactory high quality that provides to the dread even because the movie’s construction flirts with repetitiveness. 

Siregar and Labiba do a lot of the heavy lifting within the performances; the previous bringing empathy to her character’s need for revenge, the latter toggling between panic on the supernatural occasions and questioning her personal sanity. Hani Pradigya’s cinematography is lush and immersive, and Hadrah goals for max disquiet whereas hanging a stability between the acquainted and the contemporary, largely steering away from standard bounce scares and over-exposition for anybody fuzzy on Muslim lore. In spite of everything, good, evil and household friction minimize throughout creed and tradition.