“Dance of Death,” or “Rongengg Kematian” (2024), is Indonesian actor Verdi Solaiman’s directorial debut. Based on Arumi E’s novel Rongengg: Retribution of Sulastri, “Dance of Death” follows the Southeast Asian horror movie trend after the tremendous success of the KKN movie (“KKN Di Desa Penari”) back in 2019.
Dance of Death (Ronggeng Kematian, 2024) Plot Synopsis & Movie Summary:
What had occurred that fateful night in the village?
In the year 2015, a fateful event occurs at the Magunsari Village of Central Java. A young man named Imam treks along the forested path of his village to meet with presumably the love of his life, a Ronggeng dancer named Sulastri. Meanwhile, we see Sulastri entertaining a couple of men at the guest house where Imam is going to meet her. As he reaches the guest house and waits for her, he takes the engagement ring out of his pocket, giddy with happiness.
His peaceful reverie is interrupted by the appearance of Wongso, who is intended to be the village fool. He is completely infatuated with Sulastri and is not shy about expressing that to a scoffing Imam. But as the clouds start covering the crescent moon in the night sky, a power cut occurs, shrouding the village in darkness. The Imam goes to investigate the guest house, and as he enters, thunder illuminates the haphazard drawing room before the Imam is murdered by an unidentified person, being struck from behind.
Larasati’s discovery in the forest
Seven years later, Magunsari Village is at an emotional impasse. The death of Sulastri, as would be expressed later in the film, would affect everyone in the village. We are introduced to lovebirds Larasati and Hadi, who plan their future together beyond the village’s expectations. Larasati ends their sojourn by taking a shortcut through the forest to her home, only to trip on a striped shawl. Curious, she digs up the shawl and follows where it is tied, leading her to the foot of a well, where she finds an old radio and a red shawl.
Unbeknownst to Larasati, who brings back the radio and the shawl, it belonged to Sulastri, whose body hadn’t been located. Larasati doesn’t notice the well bubbling with a black liquid as she walks away. Back at her home, Larasati inserts the cassette she finds in the small bag she had foraged and inserts new batteries.
How does the red shawl possess Larasati?
After having dinner with her mother, she reflected on their conversation, where a mild argument had erupted. Her mother had expressed disappointment about her failed dreams of seeing her daughter become the Ronggeng dancer for their village, a role previously held by Sulastri. Emphatically, her mother had stated that she wasn’t good enough to fill their shoes. As Larasati replayed the conversation in her mind, a sudden realization struck her: she had dropped the watch Hadi had gifted her. She removes the batteries but not the cassette and inserts them into her torch to look for the watch. Larasati finally locates it but also witnesses the well emanating a strange radioactive glow, which spooks her.
The Ronggeng dancing tune emanates from the automatically playing stereo system that night. The shawl takes a life of its own and possesses Larasati. It enables her to perfectly dance the Ronggeng dance, which surprises and delights her mother. The following day, she drags Larasati to the dance teacher, Mrs. Menur, who doesn’t believe the story until she witnesses Larasati’s perfect dance once she wears the shawl. Lemur notices what Larasati’s mother doesn’t—Larasati is not dancing like Sulastri; she is precisely dancing like her.
Will Larasati unveil the dark secrets of Magunsari village?
Unnoticed by Larasati’s mother, the possessed girl hugs Lemur at the end of her dance and whispers, “Mother, help me, I’m in the well,” before losing consciousness. We see Lemur enacting a ritual deep in the jungle until we understand that she has been able to extract Sulastri’s spirit from the well. As Lemur rushes to her confidante Manto’s house, she learns from the spirit of Sulastri what exactly happened that fateful night that had led to the death of Sulastri and Imam.
It seems they are planning to use the new Ronggeng dancer to ensure the revelation comes to light. Much to Hadi’s surprise, the following day, he learns that not only is Larasati replacing Sulastri as the village’s Ronggeng dancer, but that the village head Marto will call the four men responsible for building the windmill, which is the village’s central landmark and has brought prosperity.
Who are the four young men?
The four young men whose names had been carved into the bas-relief in front of the windmill are four youths from Jakarta: Adit, Ricky, Yudi, and Sen. Seven years ago, as part of the KKN service (Student Study Service—the branch of community service linking academics with practical approach), these four guys had built the windmill for the Magundsari village. But more importantly, in the context of this story, these four guys had been responsible seven years ago for the death of Sulastri.
This would be revealed to us piecemeal as the men enter the village. Firstly, they would be welcomed by a frightful scare from Wongso, who would guide them to the village from the forested region. Then, they would be welcomed by the village committee, consisting of Lemur, Marto, and the remaining occupants, including Larasati and Hadi. Yudi and Ati turn out to be mostly quiet and calm individuals. At the same time, Ricky and San exhibit more of the frat-boy nature that had been expected from a movie delving into cliches quite liberally, be it in Ricky laughing at the pratfall that San suffers from diving headfirst in the mud or Ricky trying to hit on Larasti.
Will the haunted guest house reveal the truth behind Sulastri’s death?
However, for the men, things take a turn for the worse, as the guest house where they are supposed to stay for the night is the same guest house where they had spent that fateful night seven years ago. Through splicing of footage from the past and the present, we see the spirit of Sulastri scaring them, guiding San to the bathroom at the sight of blood and choking him in the same bathtub where they had found her brutalized body seven years before. San would find their college association pin that they had left that night before, busy as they had been wiping the guest house of evidence.
We learn from the conversations between Ricky and San that they suspect Adit and Yuki of having killed Sulastri. Ricky especially believes in Adit’s complicity, perhaps also because of Adit’s wealth and a somewhat holier-than-thou attitude that rubs Ricky off the wrong way. Meanwhile, Adit and Yudi believe the exact opposite regarding their comrades, whereby they believe that those two would be capable of anything once they are loaded with alcohol. Both Adit and Yudi have taken a nighttime sojourn because Adit wanted to locate a spot where his cell phone has enough network for him to call his fiance.
Will Adit and Yudi confront their past on the night of possession?
While he is trying, the two of them are interrupted by Wangso, who warns them of the crescent moon-adorned night and reminds them that this is the night of possession. In the commotion, he pushes Adit, causing his cell phone to fall from his hand and break. The irritated Adit and Yudi make their way back to the guest house, but they inadvertently come across the well on that path.
They had bundled Sulastri and Imam’s bodies up on sacks and thrown them down the well. As the two make their way back, after deciding they would make Ricky and San confess their complicity in the crime, they pass the Ronggeng ceremony in the village. They are surprised to witness Larasati as the Ronggeng dancer and how accurately she is dancing like Sulastri.
The friends’ dispute escalates at the haunted guest house
Unbeknownst to them, at the guest house, Ricky will be visited by Larasati, who will guide Ricky to his room to be seduced before the specter of Sulastri reveals itself and tries to choke him out. Ricky is rescued by the three of his friends, who find Ricky choking himself out and only broken out of his stupor after having been thrown water on his face. Ricky’s ordeal leads to an ugly altercation between Adit and San, where San accuses Adit and Yud of killing Sulastri by showing the school pin as evidence.
Adit meanwhile dismisses that, reminding San of his uncontrollable lust that he had been equally pestering Sulastri that night and how he had been forced to marry the woman he had impregnated at his regular massage parlor. This leads to a nasty physical altercation, ultimately broken by Yud, who reminds them to keep a handle on their temper until the next day, after the award ceremony. This place forces them to see things, and once they return to Jakarta and return to their everyday lives, everything will return to normal.
Is Wongso Alive?
The next day, Hadi and Larasati visit the four men, where they announce they would like to leave right then and there and that they should be allowed to visit Marto and announce their decision. In a panic, Sulastri, possessing Larasati, hypnotizes them and convinces them to stay the night when the award ceremony takes place and that they should leave tomorrow. They all agree.
Adit and Yudi accompany Hadi and Larasati to the windmill. We learn through their conversation that the four had left immediately under the excuse of submitting their thesis. At the same time, the prevalent story had been that Sulastri had run away with her boyfriend, Imam. While conversing, the two suddenly see Wongso dancing in front of the windmill before jumping. As Yudi and Adit look on in horror, Hadi reveals that Wongso had died seven years ago when he tried to inform the villagers about Sulastri’s disappearance.
However, the villagers didn’t believe him and started beating him, but he managed to escape and jump to his death. Noticeably, we see the stereo system and the shawl being held by Wongso when he jumped to his death, which proves it had been near the site where Wongso had fallen to his death, which Larasati had recovered.
Dance of Death (Ronggeng Kematian, 2024) Movie Ending Explained:
The unveiling of guilt and retribution
It becomes pretty evident as the movie progresses that all the men, while not directly responsible for the murder, had been very much responsible for covering up that horrifying deed. But it becomes abundantly clear what had happened when Adit forcefully stops Yudi from convincing the rest of the group to confess as a group that they had been the killer.
Instead, Adit, who goes to the village hall, inadvertently learns that the Maginusari village had been in cahoots with Larasati, possessed by the spirit of Sulastri, to bring the killers to justice. Hadi’s attempts to bring them to the windmill had been a way to ensure they confess, but that doesn’t work. The villagers, under the leadership of Marto and Lemur, plan to sacrifice the four of them on the night of their felicitation. But Adit takes the way out and confesses that Ricky, San, and Yudi had been responsible for their deaths.
What led to their inevitable demise?
The truth, of course, is the exact opposite, but the die had been cast. The movie explicitly shows us why the other three characters deserved to die as well, not just because of their aid in covering up their crime. Yudi had realized while throwing Sulastri and Imam’s bodies down the well that Sulastri had been alive and had asked for help, but he didn’t lift a finger. Ricky’s and San’s lustful endeavors further pushed them towards the chopping block anyway. On the night of the felicitation, they would be given a special concoction to drink, which Adi doesn’t drink, but the rest of them do.
The drink had been laced with a powerful sedative, whereby the three would be at the mercy of the dreamworld of Sulastri and where the vengeful spirit of the Ronggeng dancer would manage to dismember and kill them in horrifying ways. Ricky would be killed by running away from the spirit and falling over the open spokes of a cycle, gruesomely killing him, while Yud would be killed by being tied to one of the sails of the windmills and his head being cut off from the force of the movement of the blade. Meanwhile, San is attracted to the well containing the accolade that he had always desired—money, which he mistakes as one coming out of a well—until the mirage breaks and he falls into the well, killing him.
Who actually killed Sulastri?
But the man who actually killed Sulastri had been Adit. He had been the singular person responsible for brutally hitting her unconscious, raping her, and then killing her. Once the powercut occurs, the unsuspecting Imam would also be hit from behind. To ensure that suspicions wouldn’t be placed squarely on him, Adit would rub his bloody hands over the still drunken and sleepy friends, plant Sulastri’s body near the wash, and then go to his bedroom, seemingly having crafted the perfect alibi.
While his friends were slaughtered by Sulastri, Adit escaped the village. Two weeks later, we see Adit marrying his fiance but also looking puzzled at Larasati and Hadi’s presence as the local entertainment. According to his fiance, he had been the one to suggest them, but Adit didn’t remember.
But Adit wouldn’t escape the gruesome fate of the “Dance of Death.” In his post-marriage night, Adit would imagine Sulastri trying to kill him in her sleep as the stereo plays the dance of death tune. In that daze, he uses the stereo to bash Sulastri’s head in, and once he regains consciousness, he realizes that he killed his fiance. That horror would be too much for him to take, and he would use his belt to hang himself from the staircase instead of answering for the crimes he had committed.
