'Dendam Malam Kelam' Ending Explained & Film Summary: Is Jefri Dead?

Danial Rifki’s Indonesian thriller drama film Dendam Malam Kelam (Vengeance in the Dreary Night) is all about guilt, deceit, and vengeance. The film begins with the disappearance of a dead body from the forensic laboratory center. The night guard on duty was petrified when he saw a corpse in the elevator. By the time he called his senior, he’d been attacked. The film initially leans heavily on the supernatural horror angle, and the truth revealed at the very end comes as a surprise.  Jefri was with his girlfriend, Sarah, when he received a call from the lab stating that his wife’s body had disappeared. He freaked out, and even though he desperately wanted to forget about his wife, Sofia’s death, he believed that if he didn’t show up, the cops would suspect him. Dendam Malam Kelam doesn’t hide the fact that Jefri had killed Sofia because he was in love with Sarah. Sofia was the CEO of a prominent pharmaceutical company, and since he would’ve only inherited her wealth upon her demise, he decided to murder her. He wanted to inherit Sofia’s wealth and also be with the woman he’d fallen in love with. Jefri was a chemist, so it wasn’t hard for him to find the right poison that would result in a cardiac arrest, all while the actual cause of death would remain untraceable. Jefri’s plan played out just like he’d imagined, but things fell apart when Sofia’s body went missing. 

Spoiler Alert

Who was responsible for stealing Sofia’s body?

Dendam Malam Kelam’s ending revealed that Sofia was indeed dead; her body was stolen by police inspector Arya Pradana. Jefri was convinced that Sofia was playing a trick on him. He wondered if she ever consumed the poisoned drink he’d offered her, and he was so afraid of Sofia destroying not just his life but also Sarah’s that he ended up confessing his crime. As it turned out, Arya had orchestrated the plan. He removed Sofia’s body from the morgue to create a panic; he scattered clues all over the forensic lab for Jefri to find, which only heightened Jefri’s fear. Then, by convincing him that Sarah’s life was at risk, he pushed Jefri to confess to the crime.

The film doesn’t clarify if Dani Agustinus, the therapist Sofia was consulting, was actually a private investigator, as Arya had suggested. Considering Arya wasn’t a reliable source and Agustinus didn’t take any action against Jefri after Sofia’s sudden demise, it’s clear that he possibly wasn’t a private investigator. If Dani had proof of Jefri and Sarah’s affair, he would’ve made it public by then. Arya knew that Jefri was suspicious of Dani, and he used it to his advantage to spin a web of lies. Furthermore, it’s likely that Dani was a character Arya intentionally introduced in Sofia’s life, possibly to find more details about her. This explains why Dani wasn’t found in his chamber when the cops raided his office. Arya knew that Jefri’s guilt would make him believe that Sofia was still alive and that she was trying to seek revenge on him, and his plan worked. But why did Arya come up with such an elaborate plan? As it turned out, Arya Pradana had lost his wife to a car accident, and Jefri and Sofia were responsible for it. Arya believed his wife, Mira, would’ve survived if Jefri and Sofia had helped them get to the hospital. But instead, they sped away. Arya’s daughter, Lidya, who was in the backseat during the accident, remembered a sticker on the car that had hit them. After she drew the logo, Arya investigated and discovered that it was Hexa Medica’s logo. They figured out that Jefri and Sofia were responsible for Mira’s death. 

What was Sarah’s real identity?

In Dendam Malam Kelam’s ending, we discover that Lidya was actually Sarah, the young student whom Jefri fell in love with. Even after he was appointed the director of Hexa Medica, Jefri continued to take classes at his alma mater; he enjoyed teaching, and he always found time to make it work. He met Sarah on campus, and Arya didn’t even know at first that she’d interacted with her mother’s killer.

Lidya/Sarah wanted to make sure that the man she’d always suspected was indeed responsible for the accident. She got into a romantic relationship with Jefri and made him believe that he could trust her with all his secrets. And one day, Jefri ended up confessing to killing Mira, unintentionally. His guilt continued to trouble him. After the confession, Lidya and her father came up with the plan to punish Jefri for his past actions. She was already aware by that point that Jefri had no morals and would kill his wife if she pressured him. And Jefri didn’t disappoint. He murdered Sofia, and he didn’t even hesitate to justify his actions. Sofia had built an empire and was way more successful than him, and Jefri always felt belittled by her. Sofia tried to fix their marriage, but Jefri had already found love somewhere else. Sarah, his student, who was way younger than him, was captivated by his intelligence, and Jefri finally felt seen. He thought Sofia deserved to die, and he envisioned a happy future with Sarah.

Jefri must have been devastated when he discovered that the woman he was so madly in love with had framed him. Every word she’d said was a lie, and her every action was rooted in her need for vengeance. When Jefri was at the forensic lab, Sarah called him, and she told him that she was being followed. He was under the assumption that Sofia had come back to life; according to his theory, she’d consumed neuroleptic drugs, and they induced catalepsy (momentarily stopped her heart, which made it look like she’d died). He believed that Sofia and Dani were working together to frame Jefri and kill Sarah. He was convinced about his theory when Sarah informed him that she’d received a USB drive with pictures of her and Jefri, and it was sent by Dani. So, Jefri assumed that Sofia knew he was planning on killing her, and she wanted him to believe that his plan was successful. And just when he was about to celebrate his victory, she escaped from the morgue and made every attempt to destroy him. Of course, none of this was true. Sofia was dead; she didn’t have any clue that her husband was conspiring to kill her. If she did, she would’ve divorced him.

Sarah/Lidya had not only lied to him about the mail she’d received, but she also made sure that the clothes, mask, gloves, and shoes that her father wore while stealing the corpse from the morgue were left at Jefri’s house. The cops also found the blueprint of the forensic lab and the electrical system manual at his place. This was enough reason for the cops to suspect that Jefri stole his wife’s body from the morgue, possibly to evade an autopsy. Arya had recorded Jefri’s confession, and the evidence was enough to prove that he was responsible for the disappearance of the corpse. 

Why was Jefri hallucinating?

After Jefri confessed to murdering his wife, he was handcuffed. By the time the cops arrived at Sarah’s apartment, the place was completely empty. When they asked around, they discovered that the apartment had been empty for quite some time. We are left to assume that Arya had convinced the neighbors to lie to the cops, or maybe they only used the apartment when Jefri planned on coming over, so most of the time it really was empty. Since Sarah was a fake name Lidya had adopted, when the cops inquired about her in college, the authorities told them that they didn’t have a student by that name. It almost seemed like Jefri was delusional and his relationship with Sarah was a figment of his imagination. She wasn’t real, and he’d possibly imagined her to justify murdering his wife. Jefri couldn’t trust his own memory, and he was absolutely confused about what was going on.

He couldn’t make sense of things, especially after Sofia’s body was found in the woods. If she was dead, who was trying to frame him? By the time Arya revealed that he and his daughter were behind the elaborate plan, Jefri was already experiencing partial paralysis. He wanted to run away, but he couldn’t. During the final scene of “Dedam Malam Kelam,” we discover that Sarah/Lidya had poisoned his drink when he’d stopped by at her apartment before he was contacted by Arya. She had used the same T-800 serum that Jefri had used to poison his wife. He experienced the same struggle that she did before she passed away. The serum took eight hours to take effect, and that was exactly the amount of time Jefri had been at the lab. Consuming the serum also resulted in hallucinations, and that explains why Jefri had been seeing Sofia’s ghost. He suffered from extreme panic and fear, which explains his erratic behavior while at the lab. Considering a lot unfolds from Jefri’s perspective, it’s hard to say what he’d hallucinated and what actually happened in reality. 

Did Jefri die?

Dendam Malam Kelam’s ending confirms Jefri’s death. The T-800 did its job after the cops discovered Sofia’s body. When Jefri figured out that he would be put behind bars since he’d confessed to killing his wife, he attempted to flee, but the toxin he’d consumed unknowingly made it impossible for him to run. He collapsed to the ground and begged Arya to help him. Even though he couldn’t move, Jefri was in tears when Arya confessed the truth, but the cop didn’t care. He believed that men like Jefri deserved to be punished. He never attempted to find out what had happened to the victims of the car accident, and the fact that he didn’t even hesitate to kill his wife, who had introduced him to a whole new world, goes to show how ruthless and self-centered he was. Arya and Lidya didn’t care about doing the right thing and showing mercy. They made sure that Sofia and Jefri were punished for their actions. The worst part was that Jefri and Sofia’s world collapsed after Jefri decided to put their marriage on the line for someone who’d been plotting against him for years. He always thought Sofia didn’t want him to live in peace, but it turns out the innocent student he adored stabbed him in the back.  Jefri died a pathetic death, and he didn’t even have anyone to shed a tear for him after his demise. Lidya moved to Malaysia after executing the plan, a smart move considering her involvement in Jefri’s murder. Jefri was always very secretive about his relationship with Sarah, so it’s likely he didn’t even have any pictures of her. So the chances of the cops ever finding out the truth are unlikely. Also, as the chief investigator, Arya had everything under his control, and he’d ensure that the case was closed immediately. Lidya had been obsessed with punishing her mother’s killer since childhood, and in the end she finally managed to track him down and bring about his downfall.

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