If you’ve ever thought, “Retirement homes seem a bit creepy,” Ivanna is here to gently pat your shoulder and say, “You have no idea.” Then it throws in a decapitated Dutch ghost, Eid festivities, and enough severed heads to make you rethink any antique chest you ever see in a basement.
Part of the Danur universe, Ivanna takes what could’ve been a generic spin-off ghost story and turns it into a surprisingly entertaining mix of supernatural vengeance, colonial history, family drama, and classic Indonesian jump-scare chaos. It’s messy, bloody, often ridiculous—and honestly, pretty fun.
Fresh Start, Terrible Idea
We meet siblings Ambar (Caitlin Halderman) and Dika (Jovarel Callum) as they move into a retirement home after their parents’ death. Right away, you know that’s a red flag. If you’re young, attractive, and in a horror film, there is almost never a good reason to move into an old building full of frail people and religious holidays.
To make things worse, Ambar’s vision is failing, and with it has come the very inconvenient perk of being able to sense the unseen. Because why stop at vision loss when you can add spiritual horror to the package?
The retirement home looks cozy enough on the surface. Friendly elders. Warm atmosphere. People calling each other “Grandma” and “Grandpa” like this is going to be a wholesome drama about generational healing. Meanwhile, Ambar is quietly getting bombarded by creepy visions of the past like she accidentally subscribed to a haunting-only streaming service.
Enter Ivanna: Colonialism, But Make It Supernatural
Through these visions, Ambar sees the story of Ivanna Van Dijk, a Dutch woman in the colonial era who suffers some of the worst customer service history has to offer. “Vile imperialist” is putting it lightly—the man responsible for her fate is less “strict authority” and more “head-removal enthusiast.”
Ambar glimpses Ivanna’s brutal decapitation: a violent, humiliating death that clearly lodged somewhere deep in the architecture of the house. It’s not just backstory; it’s fuel. The film doesn’t dwell academically on colonial trauma, but it absolutely uses it as the emotional engine. Ivanna isn’t a random ghost. She’s a violent echo of a very specific historical violence, trapped in a building that’s now full of innocent people who had nothing to do with it. Which is, you know, how history tends to work.
So: Dutch ghost. Cut off head. Old house that used to be a site of slaughter. What do Ambar and Dika do?
Move in, unpack, and ignore every omen, obviously.
Basement of Bad Decisions
Ambar, being a horror protagonist, inevitably finds the one room that should be behind police tape: the basement.
Down there she discovers:
-
A mysterious chest full of trinkets
-
A creepy, headless statue
Again, at this point in the movie, a rational person would say, “Ah, no,” and go back upstairs, maybe call a priest, a historian, or an exorcist with good Yelp reviews. Instead, the chest and statue basically just get filed under “odd decor” until the situation escalates from “uneasy vibes” to “heads are actually coming off.”
And escalate it does.
Eid al-Fitr and One Very Unwanted Sacrifice
On what should be a day of joy and celebration—Eid al-Fitr, of all times—Grandma Ani is found beheaded in a gruesome pool of blood. Nothing kills the festive spirit quite like stepping over a corpse on your way to eat ketupat.
It doesn’t take Ambar long to realize this is no random act. The imagery directly mirrors what she saw in her visions of Ivanna: a woman brutalized and decapitated. It’s not just murder; it’s a ritual echo.
From there, the film goes harder into slasher-ghost territory. Ivanna’s spirit isn’t just moaning in corners and rattling windows. She’s on a mission. And that mission is apparently:
-
Haunt.
-
Decapitate.
-
Repeat.
There’s something almost darkly comic about how single-minded Ivanna is. A lot of ghosts in horror can be bargained with or appeased. Ivanna? She’s like an overdue bill from the past: persistent, precise, and absolutely uninterested in your excuses.
Ambar: Final Girl with Extra Senses
Caitlin Halderman does a solid job as Ambar, who’s basically juggling:
-
Fresh grief from her parents’ death
-
Her worsening vision
-
Moving into a place full of strangers
-
Being spiritually harassed by a headless Dutchwoman with unresolved issues
Ambar’s ability to sense the unseen isn’t treated as some flashy superhero power. It’s more like a chronic condition: painful, disorienting, and only useful in that it gives her a tiny head start (ha) on understanding what’s happening before everyone else.
She’s not perfect—she makes some objectively bad horror-movie decisions—but she’s sympathetic. She genuinely wants to protect the residents, her brother, and the fragile semblance of stability they’ve built. Unfortunately, she’s up against a ghost who’s had decades to stew in rage. And Ivanna has home-field advantage.
Ivanna: More Personality Than Most CG Monsters
As a character, Ivanna works surprisingly well. Even though she’s mostly seen in visions and as an attacking presence, there’s a sense of tragedy beneath the gore. You get enough of her backstory to understand her fury: she was wronged, brutalized, and silenced—literally, by decapitation—and now she’s using the only language she has left: violence.
Is it proportional? Not really; Grandma Ani did nothing but knit and mind her business. That’s part of the horror. History’s consequences don’t always land on the people who caused them.
From a horror perspective, Ivanna’s design and attacks are effective. Headless forms. Sudden appearances. Pools of blood. She’s theatrical enough to be memorable without turning into a parody. It helps that the film commits—when Ivanna goes for someone, it’s rarely subtle.
Retirement Home of the Damned (And the Lovable)
One of the movie’s strengths is the retirement home setting. Horror usually gives us teenagers, young families, or urban professionals. Ivanna fills its cast with elderly residents, each with their quirks and warmth. This makes their vulnerability more affecting… and the kills more brutal.
There’s a dark humor in the contrast:
-
The old folks celebrating Eid, swapping stories, and joking
…followed by -
“Oh look, Grandma’s missing her head.”
It’s the kind of tonal whiplash that Indonesian horror often excels at: broad, emotional, slightly melodramatic life moments smashed against gleefully nasty ghost violence.
The supporting characters—Arthur, Agus, Rina, and the rest—add a good mix of skepticism, comic relief, and panic. They don’t all get deep arcs, but they make the retirement home feel alive, which is exactly what you need before you start… making it not.
Colonial Ghost, Modern Audience
There’s an undercurrent running through Ivanna that gives it more bite than your average jump-scare fest: the colonial angle. Ivanna is Dutch. Her suffering comes at the hands of another colonizer. Her haunting is tied to an Indonesian building that’s seen first-hand the violence of that era.
The film doesn’t turn into a full historical lecture, but it doesn’t have to. The image of a Dutch ghost wreaking havoc in a place now populated by Indonesians—especially on a major Islamic holiday—feels symbolically loaded. For audiences who know that history, there’s extra resonance. For those who don’t, it still functions as a personal revenge story with heavy baggage.
So, Is It Actually Good?
Is Ivanna a perfect horror movie? No. It plays with familiar tropes. Some scares are predictable. The logic of the haunting gets wobbly if you stare too hard at it.
But is it a good time for horror fans? Yes.
You get:
-
A sympathetic heroine with a spooky gift
-
A visually striking, memorable ghost
-
A unique setting (retirement home + Eid)
-
Decent pacing and escalating stakes
-
A splash of historical context under all the blood
And as part of the Danur universe, it expands that world in a way that actually feels worth watching—not just a lazy cash-in. Ivanna, who could’ve been just “that Dutch ghost from the other movie,” gets a full story, a motive, and enough presence to stand on her own (with or without a head).
If you like your horror served with decapitations, cursed basements, tragic ghosts, and siblings who really deserve a refund on life, Ivanna is absolutely worth a watch. Just maybe don’t press play if you’re visiting your grandparents in an old house decorated with antique chests and European statues.
And if you hear something rolling upstairs on its own? Don’t check if it’s a ball. In this universe, it’s never a ball.
