Dancing Village: The Curse Begins

With artful cinematography and a foreboding music score, this horror movie excels in immersing viewers in a sinister forest atmosphere where the terror takes place. It's a memorable story about an evil ghost witch and generational curses.

It's a shame, but Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is a prequel that spends way too long busting the same moves horror fans have witnessed for decades. Stamboel’s direction lacks urgency, alarm, and invigoration.

It is the type of horror movie for folks who are looking for something creepy and not heart-stopping scary. ... What it may be missing for some in jump scares it makes up for with a persistent creepiness, forbidding atmosphere and spooky mystery.

While it takes arguably too long for the action to kick into gear, DANCING VILLAGE: THE CURSE BEGINS is a fitting prequel for those unfamiliar with the world of this Indonesian horror.

The film runs long but fails to capitalize on many of its spookiest images. Still, it's unusual—rarely a bad thing in horror—and does deliver some genre fun.

Gets under your skin and gnaws away at you, even after the credits roll.

Claresta Taufan gives the best performance in the movie as a daughter who must betray to save her mother.

Kimo Stamboel presents a horror film that excellently combines the horrific atmosphere with the jump scares, while including ritualistic and sensualistic elements, and implementing tradition as the source of terror

Kimo Stamboel's paranormal prequel gets three outsiders moving to a rural community's surreal beat in Eighties Indonesia

Creepy and atmospheric, but overlong, repetitive and low on scares, surprises and imagination.