Horror movies save Indonesia's film industry

In Indonesia, horror films are very popular. In 2024, over half of the country's films were horror. Last year, around 55 million Indonesians watched a horror film. That's 70 percent of all cinema tickets.

Between 1990 and 2000 only 37 horror films came out. But the situation's different now.

In traditional Indonesian stories, there are lots of ghosts and monsters. These stories are frightening. They're from Indonesian culture. And the movies often use these old stories.

This teacher, Ekky Imanjaya, says the films' stories are Indonesian. But for him, the movies aren't only for Indonesians.

Ekky Imanjaya: "Indonesian fil-, horror films, they offer a 'glocal' approach. 'Glocal' means local in story but global in cinematic language-, languages. So in, as in, you know, so, the western people, they understand what happens because we have the same film, film languages."

People across Asia enjoy Indonesian horror films. They're popular in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. And film makers can now sell their films to countries outside Asia.

Anggy Umbara's a film director. He thinks people will want to watch Indonesian horrors everywhere.

Anggy Umbara: "Indonesian cinema can be accepted all over the world. I mean, it's starting at the moment. It's starting to rise at the moment. I mean like, our movies are already wanted in the Southeast Asia, in Asia and some of them are travelling to the Western world. We are, we hope that our audience getting bigger and bigger."

The horror film business is big in Indonesia. The films bring in lots of money. The future of cinema looks good. View Less