Indonesians turn to homegrown horror films in cinemas

Crunching popcorn and screaming, Indonesians are flocking to watch homegrown horror films in cinemas that draw on the country’s penchant for ghost and monster stories.

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The genre now dominates Indonesia's theatres after this folklore helped the industry rise from the grave at the start of the century, when almost no horror films were produced locally, compared to scores last year.

“Our parents and grandparents used these stories to scare us,” said Ekky Imanjaya, 59, film studies lecturer at Jakarta’s Bina Nusantara University.

“These tales are very close to us.”

According to the Indonesian Film Board (BPI), 60 per cent of the 258 productions made domestically in 2024 were horror films.

They accounted for 54.6 million tickets sold — or 70 per cent of the total audience.