TFTHE FILMREVIEW · 50K FRESH TAKES
Debunk Beraya — poster
← ALL FRESH TAKES

SOURCE-LED EDITORIAL REVIEW

Debunk Beraya: belonging without disappearing, against the grain.

Debunk Beraya · 2023

A source-led reading of Debunk Beraya as horror: belonging, the journey, documented consensus, and the counterpoint that shifts the conclusion.

THE FILM EDITORIAL DESKAugust 31, 2026316 WORDS
01

THEMATIC CENTER

belonging
02

NARRATIVE PRESSURE

the journey
03

FORM

horror
04

RECORD ANCHORS

village · sofi's · plans

The record for Debunk Beraya yields three coordinates specific to its premise—village, sofi's, and plans. That vocabulary places belonging at the center and gives the journey its dominant tension. It establishes a documentary baseline, not a borrowed score; criticism must still ask what the form does with that material.

Debunk Beraya brings belonging into contact with the journey through horror. That intersection is our Fresh Take: judge the premise less by its familiarity than by how precisely that combination makes its conflict legible. The existing editorial note adds this view: A lively, generous comedy whose sharp timing and joy in performance deserve a big-screen audience.

Debunk Beraya (2023) arrives with the coordinates of a comédie film situated in 2020s cinema. The record credits Reen Emran with the direction and places Shahril Sarjen and Haidar Hasanudin in the foreground. With a contained running time, the useful question is not to invent an invisible intention, but to notice how these documented choices shape audience expectations before the first frame.

Read as horror, the film carries the pressure of the journey. Belonging works in two directions: a place shapes the individual, yet may demand that parts of that person remain invisible. The most precise critical test is therefore what movement undoes rather than merely which destination is reached. Comedy is often judged by the speed of its effects. This reading proposes the opposite: follow how power circulates between characters, how pauses work, and how a group agrees—or refuses—to laugh together.

The twist is to treat home not as a place recovered, but as a negotiation that never quite ends. Instead of asking whether the film confirms the expected story of belonging, the sharper question is whether it changes the person, place, or institution with the power to define it. The final question is not only ‘is it funny?’ but ‘whom does the laughter bring together, and at whose expense?’

THE VERDICT, REFRAMED

The takeaway: count fewer laughs and notice more precisely which relationships they reveal. Here, belonging changes meaning under the pressure of the journey.

THE DOCUMENTARY STARTING POINT

Sofi and Mizan's travel plans to return to the village are delayed, when Debunk fans challenge Sofi to prove that the devil's ghost is bound before Ramadan. In order to prove the truth of his words, Mizan invited Sofi to the North Mega Hospital and Sofi was definitely not to be challenged! Sofi's arrival at the Utara Mega Hospital accidentally invites Edna who has been lonely there for a long time, and really wants to feel the Hari Raya atmosphere in the village. Secretly, Edna finally gave Sofi and Mizan a ride to the village. Sofi's Hari Raya turns into chaos when Edna plans to make Sofi's Hari Raya even more fun for the family!

Original review by The Film Editorial Desk. No audience testimony or independent critic identity is fabricated.
Year
2023
Runtime
93 min
Direction
Reen Emran
Performers
Shahril Sarjen · Haidar Hasanudin · Sharifah Sakinah · Wan Chai