No sane person would willingly crawl into a buried casket six feet underground, no matter how close they were to the deceased. It takes someone either deeply troubled or fiercely determined to accomplish such a feat. But in Joko Anwar’s “Grave Torture” (2024, Original title: Siksa Kubur), Sita does just that, driven by a burning desire to prove that religion and the God so many put their faith in is nothing more than a fabricated myth to keep people in check.
Grave Torture (2024, Siksa Kubur) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Why Did Sita Renounce Her Faith?
Sita has always been grateful for her tight-knit, loving family. She has the sweetest siblings and parents who would go to the ends of the earth to give their kids the best future possible. Together, they ran a little bakery famous for her father’s irresistible buns and cakes, and their shop always seemed to attract the friendliest crowd.
But one day, their world was flipped upside down when a group of suspicious-looking strangers strolled into the bakery, pretending to buy pastries, but they actually were suicide bombers strapped with explosive vests. In an instant, a devastating explosion leveled the entire block, taking Sita’s parents with it. That horrific moment was the turning point in Sita’s life. Seeing her parents’ bodies among the rubble and lifeless victims shattered her spirit completely.
Losing her parents didn’t just shatter Sita emotionally but also broke the deep faith she once had in God. The girl who used to trust in the teachings of her holy Quran now felt like it was all a load of nonsense. In her mind, there was no heaven, hell, or divine punishment for the wicked. She came to believe that religion was nothing more than a fear tactic for scaring people with tales of hellfire and grave torture to keep them in line.
With this idea in her mind, Sita completely renounces her faith. She is determined to prove that religion is a human-made fraud, just another control mechanism. She plans to dig up the grave of a known evil person and debunk the “grave torture” myth. If that concept was fake, who’s to say the rest of what the priests preach worldwide wasn’t?
Who is Ilham?
Years go by, and Sita has grown into a young woman, now caring for the old as a nurse at a nursing home. Meanwhile, her brother Adil is working at a funeral home. For years, Sita has been looking for the perfect candidate. She is looking for a sinner who’s lived a life full of misdeeds. Sita plans to lie down in the casket with this dead body to prove to everyone that “Grave Torture” is nothing but a fabricated myth designed to scare people into submission.
She firmly believes that these religious stories are just tools used to control people, making them do terrible things, like bombing innocents. But, while Sita’s convinced it’s all a hoax, others aren’t so sure. There are whispers—people claiming to have heard the screams of souls tormented from inside their graves after they were buried.
In fact, the bomber who gave Adil a cassette the day of the attack reportedly recorded the haunting sounds coming from the grave of a serial killer. Sita eventually finds her intended target in Mr. Ilham, one of the men admitted to the nursing home. Ilham is an evil man and the school owner from which Sita and Adil escaped many years ago. Ilham, in the guise of helping young girls, used to molest and assault them.
Moreover, the spirit of the boy she and Adil saw in the tunnel while escaping the school was of Ismail, the boy who was rumored to be killed by Ilham. After Ilham dies, Sita crawls inside his grave, using a camcorder to record what happens after death. Sita spends the entire night in a grave without witnessing the grave torture, solidifying her belief that religion doesn’t exist.
Who happens at the nursing home?
Sita manages to land herself a spot on a TV show to shake up the world with what she has found. Sadly, things take a sharp left when Adil, her brother, swaps out the memory cards, completely derailing her plans. Instead of proving her point, Sita is labeled a heretic, someone who questions what she doesn’t fully grasp. It’s a mess, and her relationship with Adil also crumbles fast. He throws blame at her, accusing her of caring only for herself, even claiming their parents would still be alive if she hadn’t ratted him out, leading them to confront him about the theft.
But as bad as that was, it’s nothing compared to what’s coming her way. A few nights later, Sita hears Ilham’s voice calling out to her. The unsettling part is that Ilham has been dead for a week. Things get darker when Nani, one of the old women in the nursing home, dies under mysterious circumstances.
Nani’s husband points the finger at Sita, blaming her for his wife’s death since Sita was the one who suggested they sleep in separate rooms that night. At first, Sita thinks this is a mere coincidence, but she is forced to change her views when one of the old women living at the nursing home organizes a seance to talk with Nani’s spirit.
Grave Torture (2024, Siksa Kubur) Movie Ending Explained:
Is Sita’s Struggle with Belief in Grave Torture a Reflection of Her Own Inner Conflict?
In the days that follow, the whole country spirals into chaos as stories about “grave torture” surface. People start flocking to cemeteries, armed with recorders, trying to capture the sounds of the dead suffering beneath the earth, and disturbingly, most of them find what they’re looking for. Newspapers and TV networks blow up with reports, claiming that grave torture is real and warning that anyone who denies God, His mercy, or His punishment is doomed for hell.
Sita, though, struggles to make sense of it all. If grave torture is real, how is it possible that someone as vile as Ilham can rest peacefully in his grave? She checks on Ilham’s resting place to find answers, only to discover it’s empty. Suddenly, she finds herself back in the same eerie tunnel from years ago, surrounded by spirits who beg her to help Ismail—the boy whose death was linked to Ilham. But helping Ismail turns out to be more symbolic than literal; Sita realizes that, deep down, she might actually believe in grave torture.
How Does Sita’s Encounter with Ilham’s Torture Transform Her Belief in the Supernatural?
The moment Sita helps Ismail escape the tunnel. We’re yanked back to reality, where Sita is still lying beside Ilham’s cold, lifeless body in the grave. It dawns on her that everything she thought was real, being called a heretic, Nani’s death at the nursing home was just a hallucination. Soon after, Sita sees a snake slithering into Ilham’s mouth, and what follows is a gruesome spectacle where we see Ilham’s lifeless body being brutally tortured in ways beyond imagination. His corpse is bathed in blood, bitten by countless snakes, and then devoured by a terrifying djinn with sharp teeth, repeatedly demanding, “Who is your god?”
Seeing this horrific punishment unfold before her eyes, Sita’s entire belief system changes. She realizes she was wrong all along. Grave torture is real and not just some fear tactic. Sita drops to her knees and begs God for forgiveness. The ground beneath her starts crumbling, but just before the grave swallows her whole, she’s pulled outside by her brother Adil.
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Grave Torture (2024, Siksa Kubur) Movie Trailer:
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