Indonesia is a fascinating culture filled with folklore about ghosts, demons and djinns – shape-shifting spirits from Arabic and Islamic mythology.
These stories usually contain some sort of moral: Never neglect your home, as this will allow demons to take up residence; Always respect your elders, so they don't come back to haunt you; Resolve family disputes, otherwise their souls will not be able to transition to the afterlife because of unresolved disputes on earth; Always return home before nightfall, as sunset marks the thinning of the barrier between the spirit and material worlds.
It's no wonder horror films top the Indonesian box office every week.Forbidden Door, Devil's Slaveand Impetigo contagious Recently, Netflix's “Indonesian Horror” has introduced the new appeal of Indonesian horror to the world. Nightmares and Daydreams.
The seven-episode series is a faithful depiction of how the supernatural is woven into Indonesian culture and serves as sharp social commentary. Nightmares and Daydreams In its demythologizing form, it is as if the supernatural elements of the series are merely meant to make the audience reflect on the persistent social issues plaguing Indonesia, and more specifically, Jakarta, but the supernatural and social issues actually merge in a way that reflects reality.
especially, Nightmares and Daydreams This evokes pre-Christian cultures in which desperate characters, rather than looking to God or the church for understanding or salvation, turn to the occult and the supernatural for relief, with disastrous results.
The theme of the series is that each episode is a short story in a loosely connected world, where desperate situations lead to desperate decisions. These decisions can be moral compromises to cut corners, leading to the supernatural punishing the character, or they can lead to invocations of the supernatural for redemption.
For example, “Old House” depicts a taxi driver named Panji who faces the dilemma of whether to continue caring for his mother, who is cognitively declining, or place her in an incredibly cheap nursing home, a dilemma that concerns many in Indonesia, who lack a stable social security system for pensions and affordable nursing homes. Their elderly parents want their adult children to look after them.
In Jakarta, it is not uncommon for three or four generations to live together in one house or in the same neighborhood. Culturally, when children get married, they are not sent off to form their own nuclear families, but rather to expand the existing family. There is little emphasis on the idea of a boundary between married adult children and unmarried children. Everyone is under the authority of the eldest member of the family, and everyone has a duty to care for the elderly.
It is only natural that Panji will be punished for neglecting his traditional role and giving in to desperation when his desperation leads him to move his mother to a nursing home, which turns out to be run by a terrifying cult intent on exploiting the nursing home's residents.
Many episodes revolve around characters living in extreme poverty. In “Orphan,” a grieving couple pin their hopes on an orphan wizard boy rumored to have the power to bring great wealth to those who care for him and death to those who mistreat him. “Encounter” focuses on a fisherman named Wahyu (meaning “revelation” in Indonesian) and his village, which is facing eviction. After Wahyu captures a photograph of an angel, the villagers hope to use the rare item to avoid forced eviction. Both episodes highlight the stark inequality between Jakarta's powerful wealthy and its oppressed poor, leaving the poor vulnerable to further exploitation.
In “Poetry and Pain,” Rania, a writer struggling to move on from her hit novel about abuse, has a supernatural connection with a woman facing severe domestic violence. The episode reminds viewers that with no legal recourse available to victims in Indonesia, abusers rarely face punishment, yet Indonesians are addicted to such scandals for entertainment.
Other episodes address the important role fathers play, exploring what happens when they're absent and how their choices affect their families. For example, in “Hypnotized,” a desperate father turns to hypnotized theft (an increasingly common phenomenon in Indonesia) to provide for his family, only for them to follow him with tragic consequences. Family responsibility looms large in the show's conscience.
A world full of spirits Nightmares and Daydreams It reminds Christians of the unique hope we have in Christ amidst broken systems and hopeless situations, and the redemptive impact of Christian faith in the context of the ancient world.
Like Indonesian culture, the Greco-Roman world in which early Christians lived was polytheistic and full of magical rituals, pilgrimages, and idolatry. Christians were seen as disruptive to religion because they rejected these practices and believed that Jesus Christ was the climax revelation of the one Creator God. Jesus dealt with our ultimate problem, sin, and on the cross he defeated and shamed power. Christianity was thus a religion that demystified and opposed superstition.
Rather than seeing the Triune God as a myriad of spirits and forces behind each event and place, He came to be seen as an agent of providence, working through secondary causes and not manipulated by human decisions.
Rather than seeking the help of God or the Holy Spirit for his own ends, Jesus calls his disciples to imitate God, who does not see divinity as something to be exploited but rather humbles himself and serves in the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6–7). Jesus calls us to share in God's work of caring for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40), counting the poor and marginalized as blessed (Matthew 5:3–11), and caring for widows, orphans, and those who cannot care for themselves (James 1:27). The church should therefore be an agent of mercy in times of great desperation.
The horror genre reminds us that we are out of control, that we are vulnerable, and that we live in “these evil times” (Galatians 1:4). Asian horror in particular often reveals spiritual holes that resist the secularization of the modern West. Nightmares and Daydreams is no exception. This passage reminds us that the world has not yet been fully softened by the anti-superstitious influence of the Christian faith, and that the Church must play a saving role so that those in desperate situations do not have to turn to the devil for deliverance.
The show also sharply illustrates how an Indonesian culture that prioritizes family, traditional gender roles, and spiritual openness continues to be plagued by a sinful and broken context that is in as much need of biblical witness as a secular context that prioritizes self-reliance, careerism, and resistance to seductive concepts.
Like many anthologies, Nightmares and Daydreams The quality of the productions varies. “Poems and Pains”, “The Old House” and “PO Box” (directed by Anwar himself) are particularly good. The acting is sometimes overly theatrical or awkward. The special effects are limited and sometimes sketchy, and the explanations are too self-explanatory. Some of the episodes could be shortened to 30-minute shorts (especially “Encounter” and “Hypnotized”) rather than hour-long dramas. Also, the series contains disturbing themes such as violence, monsters, ghosts, cults and abuse, so it may not be for everyone.
But for Christians, we are reminded that the cure for social ills is not to move from secularism to spiritualism, from self-governance to family values, from liberalism to conservatism (or vice versa), but rather to be seduced by the unique hope we have in Christ, who calls us to be agents of mercy and reconciliation to a world in desperate need of it.