Written and directed by Dain Said, co-written by Ben Omar and Nandita Solomon, a young apprentice healer tries to suppress his supernatural abilities so he can fit in with the other kids, but when a malicious spirit breaks out in his apartment, he decides to use his abilities while dark family secrets are revealed. Starring: Idan Aedan, Bront Palarae, Remy Ishak, Nadiya Nissa, Amanda Ang, Pearlly Chua, Angelica Petra and Arnie Shasha.
Going into Blood Flower, it has an extremely understated style, with a highly superstitious air and moves relatively quietly with the occasional bump in the night. There’s a lot of sadness and loss at work, which is what makes it all the more surprisingly when it takes some intensely violent and dark turns. Stylistically it starts to become like The Exorcist mixed with The Lovely Bones and there’s a lot of nods to different supernatural horror films with a religious side.
Moving so abruptly from that restrained style, with an almost bland visual, to throwing in a lot of blood and gore, is not a smooth transition. It feels as though you’ve mashed two films together, rather than transitioning the tone and upping the stakes. It does still work but it makes it less effective than it could have been, it needed a stronger foundation to make that evolution. Especially as its earlier, simpler and casually creepy atmosphere actually worked well. As well as the fact it practically tries to make up for moving slowly in the first half, by suddenly throwing a lot at you and constantly.
Although the writing gets credit for making the origin story of this supernatural adventure unexpectedly dark, it’s a shame it doesn’t come into play until late in the game. There’s plenty of trauma and cruelty to unpack that doesn’t really get its time. Similarly, in how there’s some interesting territory in relating back these supernatural experiences to the titular flower, nature and coming from the earth but it feels under explored.
There are some good characters at work and the kids make a nice ensemble, but it doesn’t take enough time to develop their personalities, particularly the lead Iqbal (Idan Aedan). So much of his persona is centred around fear and loss, that it’s hiding his true personality. Gradually, he brings out the typical traits of bravery, principles and being a protective brother but they’re all fairly standard. Blood Flower spends the majority of its runtime with Iqbal but never really gives him any qualities to set him apart, he’s instead a remarkably sombre young man. Although that’s not to fault Aedan’s performance as he really throws himself into the emotional nature of this role.
Blood Flower feels like two different films working at the same time, one is ultra-violent and dark and the other has a casually creepy, slowly get under your skin vibe, and sadly the two don’t work that well together. The foundation doesn’t quite match the following layers, but you can see what they were going for and there is still a lot for horror fans to enjoy. Although the visual plays things much too simply, it’s massively lacking in colour and energy, which makes sense at first but needed an injection of force in its later moments to better pack a punch.
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