Netflix’s “The Corpse Washer” (Pemandi Jenazah in Indonesian) is an Indonesian horror film directed by Hadrah Daeng Ratu, with a screenplay by Lele Laila. Starring Aghniny Haque in the lead role, the movie stars Djenar Maesa Ayu, Ibrahim Risyad, and Amara Sophie, among many others. “Corpse Washer” isn’t just filled with scary visuals and jump scares. It explores the eerie world of funeral rituals, curses and the burden of family secrets left unsaid.
Cast with Characters
- Lela (Aghniny Haque): The protagonist of the story, Ibu Siti’s daughter who takes her mother’s place as the corpse washer in the village.
- Ibu Siti (Djenar Maesa Ayu): The mother of Lela and the primary corpse washer in the village. She passed on the tradition of washing bodies to her daughter.
- Ibu Ida (Riafinola Ifani Sari): A friend of Ibu Siti and a villager whose death is mysterious and leads to suspicions in the village.
- Ana (Vonny Anggraini): Another friend of Ibu Siti and Ibu Ida, whose death also raises concerns and connections to the mysterious events.
- Bimo (Aji Santosa): Ana’s son, who witnesses his mother’s death and becomes a key source of information for Lela in uncovering the truth.
- Nur (Nelly Sukma): A woman from the village who is linked to the deaths and who becomes a central figure in the unfolding mystery.
- Rika (Amara Sophie): Nur’s daughter, suspected by Lela to be involved in the deaths due to her connection to Nur and her suspicious behavior.
- Terry (Ruth Marini): A character who spreads rumors in the village about curses and connections to the deaths.
- Policeman Drajat (Muhammad Nur Qomaruddin): The local policeman who becomes involved in the investigation and advises Lela about the dangers of making accusations without evidence.
- Mrs. Tutti (Mian Tiara): A villager who meets a tragic fate related to accusations involving Nur.
- Arif (Ibrahim Risyad): Lela’s brother, who becomes entangled in the events and ultimately suffers a tragic fate.
- Miss Murni: A deceased person whose body Lela prepares, leading to further revelations and mysteries.
Plot Summary
Lela and her mother, Ibu Siti, worked together as corpse washers in her village. They shared a special ability to predict death. One day, her mother sensed a friend’s impending death but kept it to herself. Sadly, the friend died that night in a tragic way. Her mother washed the body alone because Lela refused to help, leading to a big argument between them. Despite her dedication, Lela occasionally considered leaving to explore new opportunities, causing friction with her mother. Tragically, her mother died suddenly that night under mysterious circumstances, sparking rumors of witchcraft among the villagers. Driven to uncover the truth, Lela discovered strange wires in the bodies she prepared, hinting at secrets from her mother’s past. As she investigated further, she felt haunted by malevolent spirits.
How Does It All Start?
The movie starts in a small village in Indonesia, mostly inhabited by Muslims. It revolves around Ibu Siti and her daughter, Lela. Ibu Siti was the sole corpse washer in her village. It was a role her mother had trained her for, and she took great pride in it. She hoped that her own daughter, Lela, would follow in her footsteps. However, Lela aspired to be a makeup artist because she found corpse washing to be scary. The mother and daughter would have regular arguments due to this.
Like her mother, Lela could see omens, which she considered a curse. Her brother, Arif, worked as a repairman in the village. Lela was taught to wash bodies from a young age but couldn’t imagine doing it without her mother’s help and support. Lela’s world came crashing down when her mother died under mysterious circumstances. She had to take over her mother’s work and uncover the truth behind her mother’s sudden death.
What Happened To Ibu Siti?
The first mysterious death in the village that raised suspicion was that of Ibu Ida. Ibu Siti had evil spirits around her when she witnessed her dancing during the circumcision party of Ibu Ida’s grandson. Ibu Siti felt unsettled when she herself was doing her prayers. She felt a malevolent presence. She could feel something was wrong, and it involved Ibu Ida. However, before she could go out of her house, she heard the announcement that Ibu Ida was found dead. She went to Ibu Ida’s house and saw how unnaturally she had died.
Upon returning home from her duty, Ibu Siti collapsed and felt exhausted and overwhelmed by her thoughts. She immediately burned Ibu Ida’s clothes. She advised Lela to always throw away the items of the dead, even if she had the urge to keep them. Right after that, she looked into a mirror in the house and saw the image of a scary face looking back at her. That night, Siti died due to an evil spirit.
Lela was shocked and could hardly believe her eyes when she woke up in the morning, only to find her dead mother lying by her side with her mouth open and blood on the bed sheet and the pillow. Despite the fact that there were no signs of intrusion into the room, her body showed signs of a struggle. When it was time to wash her body, the grief stricken Lela could feel her mother’s spirit guiding her to do this job.
Lela was shocked and upset when she removed a piece of barbed wire stuck in her dead mother’s mouth. At that point, she was sure Ibu Siti didn’t die from natural causes. She also knew that Ida had died in suspicious circumstances and thought that there could be some link between this death and the one that she had just witnessed.
The very next night, Ibu Siti’s friend, Ibu Ana, died in the same manner as Ida. Her death also raised suspicion due to the circumstances. It seemed like all three friends died in the same way. Ibu Ana’s son, Bimo, had witnessed the death of his mother right before him. In fact, Bimo wanted to kill himself because he thought that there was an evil power in the room when his mother was dying, and no one else was in there with them. He never told the other people in the village the manner in which the women had died, but with Lela, he informed her that his mother had uttered the name “Nur” many times before she died.
Who Was Nur?
Bimo showed Lela a snapshot of their group at the botanical garden. Actually, Lela remembered that she saw the same picture among Ida’s things, but it was defaced. This made her start suspecting that there was some link between Nur and those mysterious deaths. In fact, she realized that nobody from the village talked about Nur much except for Lela, who wanted to know more about her.
In an act of desperation to find out this mystery, Lela exhumed Ida’s grave to see if she had been killed in the same way. Lela found barbed wire inside Ida’s body, which confirmed to her that she had been murdered. She started to think maybe Ibu Terry’s theory was right about a curse being behind these deaths. One day, while looking through an old photo album at Ibu Ida’s place, Lela discovered a photograph of someone called Nur. A spirit revealed to her that Nur was an evil woman who split up families, but before Lela could learn more about her, the spirit disappeared into thin air.
Lela became obsessed with finding out what actually happened and couldn’t sleep until she understood why her mother had died. She shared her theory with Arif. Ibu Terry, who eavesdropped on their conversation, started spreading rumors around town that said Lela thought the recent deaths were caused by a curse related to Nur. When Lela met with Policeman Drajat, he asked her about her claims against Nur. He told her about Nur’s suicide and how she had been a widow with a daughter about Lela’s age. Besides, he warned her to be careful and inform him in case anything strange came up.
Soon after that, Ibu Terry was possessed by Nur’s spirit. Nur wanted Lela to see it from her perspective. The village women accused her of seducing their husbands and destroying their families. The village women actually went to her house, dragged her out, and severely beat her.
“Corpse Washer” (2024) Ending Explained: Did Lela Find Out Who Was Behind All The Murders?
Lela could not believe it when she discovered that Nur had a daughter of almost the same age as her and suspected her to be Rika. While Lela had very scanty information about Rika, the latter had told her that she had lost her parents. Unlike other women in the village, Rika did not appear to be as disturbed by recent fatalities in the village. Rika had requested that Arif repair her house, and having looked through Arif’s belongings, Lela found the keys to Rika’s house.
Lela went to Rika’s house at night and entered, and for a while, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, she saw a cracked tile and tried to move it with a hunch that there were other things underneath it. She was taken aback when she found that there were photographs of Nur and her friends (the victims’ photos) whose faces were blurred with barbed wire. Lela also found another picture of Nur and a little girl, and the label on the photo says, ‘Rika loves Mom’. This confirmed that Rika was Nur’s daughter, and she cursed anyone who accused her mother of ruining their families. Especially when, after Lela managed to find the truth, there was another death again. Right after that, Ibu Tutti, who had also accused Nur of stealing her husband, died in the same mysterious way. The spirits of the dead people appeared before Lela to seek justice.
Policeman Drajat started getting suspicious of Lela because she took longer than usual to wash the corpse. The police officer began wondering if she was hiding something and asked her if she knew anything concerning the deaths. Finally, Lela spoke up and accused Rika of those murders in front of everyone. To their great surprise, the villagers discovered that Nur’s daughter is Rika.
Drajat cautioned Lela against making allegations without proof, but she would not keep quiet. She went straight to Rika and reminded her how her mother broke families when she did so too. Rika pleaded with Lela to stop, saying she didn’t want to harm anyone not directly responsible for her mother’s death, and ran away, which infuriated Lela.
Afterwards, the village women got very angry with her, kicking down her door and dragging her out into the open like an animal. This reminded Rika about how an infuriated mob lynched her mother for allegedly seducing men in their community. She was being beaten the same way as her mother. At one point, she got up and angrily implored them not to repeat the same mistake, pointing out that if she was guilty, then so were they. Ibu Siti’s spirit came to Lela and asked her to stop the violence. Even though Lela resented Rika because of the curse, she thought that the mob killing Rika would be unfair. Both Lela and her brother Arif tried saving Rika, but unfortunately, Arif died from a head blow. Lela may have also survived due to Lela’s intervention but left the village due to animosity.
The mid-credit scene in “The Corpse Washer” suggests that Lela upheld their family’s tradition as a corpse washer in the village. After she lost her mother and brother, she devoted herself to it completely. While preparing Miss Murni’s body, however, she located a needle on its chin, which meant another for Lela to investigate.
