[Review] PENGABDI SETAN 2: COMMMUNION (2022)

I do definitely had hopes for this one. Specifically because I love Joko Anwar's works pre-Satan Slaves (and also Satan Slaves itself). The dude also has this perfect branding and persona that he oftenly shapes and shares on social media. Whether his views on politics, religions, social, culture, and even obsessions of the unknown. His past works oftenly reflects his persona and audiences who watched them can feel the love and passion that he put in his films.

But not until his last two feature films that I felt kinda stumbled upon putting his personal views into his films and the need to satisfy more wider audiences (since Satan Slaves was the first major box office success in his career). Feels very hard to balance two of these things in able to make a more coherent film and not just an arena for his fans to putting together a puzzle that somewhat is not important to non-fans audience.

During the first act of Satan Slaves 2, I was surprised about the setting and the discourse that this film is trying to bring. The socio-politic content was the last thing that I could think of when it comes to Satan Slaves. And the introduction of the apartment is just top notch. From the various residents to the eerie atmosphere, like an almost perfect way to start your film (also reminded me of Fiksi, Mouly Surya's film that was written by Joko). It's almost like giving a bit of taste of what's the film going to become, and makes me as an audience believe that the scale in this one is going to be bigger than the first film. To be honest during the first act alone, I was ready to say that somehow Joko's going for his old path in filmmaking. With more critical content and unique treatment. And might be one of Joko's best.

But as the second act begin, the film kinda abandoned all of that critical setup in the first act. Making it just an exploration of mystery (for some characters) and a mumbo-jumbo of terrors (for some other characters, including new ones). For the mystery itself, we didn't really get some new informations about the cult and the deadites. Most of it already been given in the first film. And about the terror, I was hoping for arc-related terrors for the new characters, instead of some random terror and then jumpscares. But I gotta admit, the treatment for the horror sequences are kinda unique, and the technical unit really excels at what they done. But then again, too much pointless terrors with uninteresting payoffs are kinda bit dull.

My question is, why abandon such high concept that was already brought in the first act and just went through the generic "exploring and get scared" trope in the second act? It feels like Joko just repeating his own (I don't know, should I call it casualties at this point, because he did this for three times in a row now?). If he did this to get in the way of public audiences heart, I believe there's a more solid way instead of just making your film a terror fest. Is it a wasted potential? If I may say, yes. It is. Because I know Joko's able to be full blown Joko Anwar with his critical, sassy, and unexpected mind. And I will wait if he's ever gonna do that again.