Lembayung – When Horror Became Too Real to Leave Behind
At first glance, Lembayung seemed to be just another spine-chilling Indonesian horror film. It had all the quintessential features — ghosts, sinister hospital corridors, and a harrowing past. Yet, Lembayung turned out to be a lot more complicated. The film focused on two nursing students caught up between one dark superstition and one more sinister trauma, and was created under conditions that mirrored the film’s storyline. It was not just the characters who battled unseen phantoms — the performers and the production team did too. Facing a barrage of screams and dodging terrible flickering lights was an exercise in deep moral endurance for all the participants in the project, one that tested the boundaries of human horror versus reel horror.
The Story That Bled Into Reality
Lembayung is the story of Arum and Pica, two young women interning at an old medical clinic in a quiet Indonesian town. They first experience an ordinary clinic, but that reality changes Arum begins to see ghosts that are connected to the clinic’s dark past. As the film unfolds, what promises to be a usual ghost story evolves into an important commentary on the trauma, more specifically, the unspeakable female trauma that it is embedded with silence.
Arum’s arc is central. She is not merely haunted by ghosts, she is haunted in a professional place designed to assist with the harassment and terror she holds. Her quiet suffering is a reflection of the many women in real life who endure the prolonged terror of silence and the dread of disbelief. It is this truth that the film relies upon, and it is this truth that many describe as brutal. This is the truth that can shatter a person—the ghost is not dead. The ghost is a living wound.
The Weight of Arum—Yasamin Jasem’s Hesitation
There is a YouTube video of an interview with Yasamin Jasem. She was to play Arum in an upcoming film, and it was a role that almost didn’t happen. She reportedly hesitated. it was anticipated that she would depict psychologically demanding roles. She hesitated primarily because, during the early years of her career, she was typecasted for roles of a more light-hearted repertoire. For this film, she would have to play something far more sinister and psychologically demanding as early roles would be typecasting her in far lighter, more emotionally simplistic works.
When she finally accepted the role, it was reported that she was not restrained. To depict Arum’s pain, she did not depend upon the theatrical presentation of fear, she fear, silence, and restraint. However, while her stillness did, in fact communicate her message, it was reported that she found silence to which she found Arum. This was expressed in the interview. Specifically, it was articulated as the fear of being unheard and the need to outwardly exhibit composure while being a crumbling mess internally. Arum needed to break the silence, to speak.
Her hesitation was understandable. The part took an emotional toll on her. Some cast members have commented on her withdrawal for hours after filming some of the more emotionally intense scenes, including one where she breaks down in an empty clinic hallway. Exhaustion is one of the many ghosts in a film about the supernatural.
When Casting Became a Gamble
Casting for Lembayung was a small adventure in itself. Some players took the role under the impression it was a psychological drama, failing to understand its roots in supernatural horror. One of the major male cast members, Erick Estrada, joked afterward about how he was “tricked into a horror movie.” For some, it was their first encounter with the genre.
Her performance, all quiet menace and tragic sadness, turned the character into an icon almost overnight. The ghostly presence of Tantri in the film’s visuals was brought to life by Malaysian actress Anna Jobling, who producer Baim Wong approached directly. The image of her smiling in the dimly lit hallway of the trailer quickly circulated on Indonesian social media, a scene that became Lembayung’s unofficial signature.
As one of the biggest names in the film industry, Arya Saloka views ‘Lembayung’ as his return to the big screen after a hiatus. The emotional resonance of the story drew him in. In an interview he said, “It felt like a ghost story about real people,” which succinctly captures the film as well as the experience of making it.
More than Spooky Stories
Every horror production is accompanied by a few “spooky” stories, but Lembayung collected more than its fair share. The majority of the film was shot in Yogyakarta, which included an old, abandoned building with a troubling history. The crew worked in old, narrow hallways, aged hospital wards, and underground storage caverns that had not been during decades. The smell of iron and damp plaster lingered in the air, and in the silence that ensued during takes, the crew claimed to hear silence more pronounced than any sound effect their imagination could reach.
Actors and crew members reported hearing footsteps when no one was walking, lights flickered during pivotal scenes, and in specific rooms the temperature dropped as the shadows deepened. One night a crew member fainted and claimed to have seen a shadow cross an empty set but was blamed for the movement stoppage order.
Aside from the mystical legends, the worst nightmare was the sheer exhaustion of the human body. Due to budgetary constraints, the cast and crew members had to work overnight to circumvent the cost of additional shooting days. Those budget cuts took a toll on crew morale, and on the work as a whole, as crew members working on the night shifts fell ill and one of the actors had to take a short hiatus due to exhaustion. In one extreme case, a crew member became so ill he had to vomit blood after a highly strenuous shooting a scene, and was found to be the stress of the work.
The production team working to complete the film was themselves under tremendous stress, and so a surreal sense of tension crept into their work. “It was as if the building didn’t want to let us go,” echoed one crew member. No one needed to actually believe there was a sense of evil. They all felt it.
Horror as a Tool for Social Commentary
Lembayung director and producer Baim Wong wanted to take this film beyond a simple jump-scare production. He from the beginning aimed for emotional authenticity— a social commentary work of horror. Originating from a viral thread about a haunted dental clinic, the story grew into an intricate exploration of the women’s fear, silence, and strength.
In order to achieve this effect, Wong preferred practical effects and realistic performances to the overuse of CGI. For the levitation scenes, the film crew had to practice using old-school wire rigs. However, during one of the night shoots, the team had to improvise and redo a scene when the rig malfunctioned. They opted to lower the visual effects, which made the scene even more horrifying in its realism.
The minimalist approach during the shoot ironically served as a counter to the approach. Natural light, hand-held cameras and long takes were used to create the texture of Lembayung. This technique, in turn, made the film raw, exposed, and disturbingly realistic.
The Cost of Fear
Exhaustion lay behind the film’s viral success and buzz. The geographical and financial restrictions placed the production under even more strain. Within this framework, actors had to sustain their emotional performances under pressure when takes were limited, a demand which, paradoxically, enhanced their performances.
Once shooting Ellen’s dream role was over, several cast members claimed to have been ‘haunted’ by their parts. In particular, Yasamin Jasem spoke of dreams involving the clinic, while the actress playing Tantri, Anna Jobling, had to ‘detox emotionally’ after nights of embodying Tantri’s character and grief under her pale makeup.
Fans praised the film’s expressed realism upon its release, barely scratching the surface on the struggles that led to that realism.
The Horror That Stayed
Ghost scenes, haunting music, and the emotional finale are the talks of the audiences of Lembayung. The makers of the film however dealt with real-life ghosts, the experiences that they bore long past the filming.
Each of the makers Lembayung, the first horror film that gained its fear from reality, espoused the anxiety, exhaustion, and disembodied spiritual pain needed to represent survival. What came to be the essence of the film was their suffering outside the frame: trauma that does not dissolve, that lingers, Soft like dusk, like the lembayung.
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