Dimas, an investigative reporter from Jakarta, is trying to finish an edit on a deforestation expose when he is framed for his editor's horrific murder and tossed into prison. He ends up in the rough Cell Block C, where he gets taken in by Anggoro, a respected convict who spends half his time in solitary for protecting fellow prisoners.
Anggoro runs with a tight, weird crew of social outcasts. They include Six, an inmate who claims he can see spirits (this is important), alongside a low-key smart former professor, a religious man, and a con artist. They are all just trying to get by without drawing the attention of the incarcerated hitman, Tokek.
Things get messy fast (and by messy we mean "gloriously gory") when an invisible force starts taking out people left and right, leaving the bodies on display like fucked-up art exhibits. With the body count climbing, the threat stays totally unpredictable. Nobody knows who the ghost is going to target next or why.
While trying to figure out what's going on before the whole block gets wiped out, they make the link that everything started when Dimas arrived at the prison. Now Anggoro has to keep Dimas safe from the other prisoners as well. To stay alive, Anggoro and his crew, along with the rival yard gangs and the guards, have to drop their beefs and work together. Desperate times take desperate measures and they all try some pretty out-there, hilarious ideas to dodge the spirit's wrath.
Ghost in the Cell really hits its stride when it fully embraces the absurdity of the set-up, delivering its political manifesto disguised as a dark comedy on top of gruesome displays of horror. To escape the dangerous supernatural threat roaming the block, the inmates are forced into ridiculous, wholesome group activities just to survive. This creates a bizarre tonal shift where hardened criminals suddenly engage in hilarious, slapstick scenarios, ridiculous behavioral changes, and spontaneous dance battles used purely to de-escalate tension. When Ghost in the Cell is funny, it is damned funny.
Our immediate reaction to Ghost in the Cell? That very first kill in the prison is the exact type of violence that makes your sphincter clench involuntarily. And the dispatching of the editor in the prologue? It literally hangs over the entire rest of the story. But right alongside the gore, you instantly notice how loud the political themes are, leaving you wondering right away if this madness is based on real-life events.
Anwar has been very open about the inspiration for Ghost in the Cell, sharing that the story’s political rage was based on Indonesia's August 2025 anti-corruption protests. The film acts as a sharp critique of the actions that led to those riots, which kicked off when regular people found out politicians were getting massive housing allowances while everyone else faced strict austerity cuts. Anwar channels that public anger directly into the movie's prison setting, of regular inmates scraping by in terrible conditions, while the prison warden yucks it up with corrupt officials. Even the plot setup—a framed journalist dealing with brutal prison guards—pulls from the real-world backlash against state violence.
Horror isn’t just about the scares—it’s a mirror holding up society’s anxieties. Much like the horror genre's literary staples Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1897) used monsters to mirror societal anxieties like scientific overreach, immigration, and disease, filmmakers today still use the genre to expose real-world trauma and systemic issues. Anwar has simply picked up the mantle in Ghost in the Cell, using a supernatural prison setting to critique institutional corruption and environmental destruction.
So, the short answer is, yes.
The film’s standout practical effects were brought to life by a 17-person local crew led by prosthetics department heads M. Anwar and Dodi Setiadi, prosthetics designer Anwar Gepeng, and makeup effects artist Novie Ariyanti. Joko Anwar told us in a quick back and forth it was, "... a collaboration of illustrators (6 of them), the art department, the make-up effects, prosthetics crew and costume department". It is the kind of meticulous, macabre craft that transforms simple gore into these morbid art installations.
Yes, we reached out immediately to Anwar after watching Ghost in the Cell to ask about these art installation kills, they were that impressive. While he hasn’t officially cited it as an influence, the collaborative work on the movie's gory, ornate kills immediately brought to mind the brilliant, artistic body horror of the TV series Hannibal. Anwar did tell us in our quick exchange that the iconic franchise Hellraiser was an influence, in particular. That makes sense and both are good 'comps' if you are familiar with either franchise.
The horror components are anchored by spectacular, gruesome prosthetics. However, Anwar carefully limits the actual on-screen acts of ghostly violence so the audience never loses focus on the cruelty the prisoners face from the guards. Instead, the movie often skips the attack and drops us right into the stunning aftermath, using incredible practical effects to turn an attack on systemic corruption into a physical nightmare. You do not need to see that level of violence in the first prison kill, any more of it would distract from the prisoners’ absurd reactions to it.
The ghost's movements are clever, utilizing the reporter as an unwitting vessel to navigate throughout the prison. Driven by a purpose, it tracks negative energy, searching for the worst concentration within the walls. It has a target and in a world where institutional justice fails, the spiritual realm has stepped in to enforce balance.
As Anwar observes, when those meant to hold others accountable are compromised, the natural and spiritual worlds bypass human systems to carry out retribution. It is something akin to the climax of Joshua Gil’s more poetic supernatural fantasy-horror, Sanctorum, or the slow build in Jayro Bustamante’s political folk-horror, La Llorona — both from 2019. Just Ghost in the Cell is far, far bloodier and less serious in its delivery, weaponizing the message for the multiplex.
Ghost in the Cell works because it doesn't compromise. It delivers heavy practical gore for the horror purists, genuine laughs through its absurd comedy, and a sharp political critique that connects whether you're tracking Indonesian politics or just looking at institutional decay globally.
If you have the stomach for the gore, it's definitely worth a watch.