When I came across Ain, I immediately thought the idea was worth paying attention to because Indonesian horror has already given us plenty of supernatural movies, but turning the idea of the evil eye into a nasty body horror story about a beauty influencer is something I haven’t seen done quite like this.
Joy Has Finally Become the Person She Wanted to Be
Joy Putri, played by Fergie Britanny, has built a career around beauty and social media after spending much of her younger life feeling invisible because of the way she looked, and now she’s determined to keep the attention she’s worked so hard to get.
She’s chasing bigger numbers, more followers and thousands of viewers watching her livestreams, but an old school friend called Dini, now a university lecturer and played by Putri Ayudya, warns her about something Joy doesn’t particularly want to hear.
She tells her that constantly displaying her beauty, wealth and success could leave her vulnerable to ain, but Joy doesn’t exactly listen, and then her appearance starts changing – disturbing physical transformations that doctors can’t explain, while Joy’s mental state starts falling apart at the same time.
That’s where Ain seems to get interesting for me, because the thing Joy has spent her entire life chasing – beauty and attention – eventually becomes connected to the thing destroying her.
Trailer
What Exactly Is Ain?
The title refers to ain, a belief associated with the evil eye, where envy, jealousy or excessive admiration can cause harm to another person – it’s a concept found across different Muslim communities and has a long history within Islamic cultural and religious traditions.
What makes the film seem quite interesting though is what it does with that idea – instead of somebody simply becoming jealous of a neighbour or being cursed by an enemy, Joy is constantly putting herself in front of thousands of people online.
Sicial media obviously encourages people to do exactly what Joy is doing – show everyone how good your life is, show them how beautiful you look, show them what you’ve bought, show them where you’ve been, get people watching, liking and talking – but here, Ain then comes along and asks what happens if some of those people aren’t admiring you quite as harmlessly as you think.
An Indonesian Horror With a Very Modern Fear
Ain is directed and written by Archie Hekagery, with Fergie Britanny as Joy Putri and Putri Ayudya as Dini Haryanti, and the cast also includes Bara Valentino, Clara Kaizer, Cindy Purba and Bea Random – the film is produced by Raam Punjabi, with MVP Pictures and Manara Films behind the production, and it was released in Indonesia on May 7, 2026, with a runtime of around 110 minutes.
There’s a really obvious connection between beauty and horror here, but I think it’s worth mentioning because Ain takes something that is normally presented as positive and turns it completely around, but the supernatural element also doesn’t feel randomly bolted onto the social media story.
The belief in ain is specifically connected to admiration, envy and attention, so putting it into the world of influencers makes an obvious kind of sense, because even without the supernatural element, there’s something slightly disturbing about how much of modern life involves constantly putting yourself on display for strangers.
Ain just takes that idea and turns the consequences into body horror, and I’m particularly curious about how far Archie Hekagery takes the physical horror, as I’m also a sucker for body horror when there’s a proper reason behind the transformations, and here there are several layers to it – the Indonesian setting and Islamic cultural influence also give the story something specific to work with, while the body horror gives it a much nastier edge, hopefully.
Check out some more Indonesian horror movies.
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