Mudborn

Score: 2 / 10
Category: Movie
Platform: Netflix

One-line verdict

A messy Taiwanese horror film that mistakes predictable jump scares and random chaos for actual fear.

Why I watched this

I finished Mudborn on Netflix on 26 April.

This took me about three weeks to complete, which already says a lot. I went into it because it was in the Top 10 movies in Malaysia, and since it was a horror movie — plus my first Taiwanese film — I thought, why not give it a shot?

The premise sounded interesting enough. A man mistakenly brings home a broken clay doll, not knowing it contains a vengeful spirit, and his pregnant wife slowly becomes affected by it. Netflix lists it as a 2025 Taiwanese supernatural horror film starring Tony Yang, Cecilia Choi, and Derek Chang.  

Story & Structure

The story should have worked better than it did.

Possessed clay doll. Pregnant wife. Husband trying to save her. Exorcism. Folklore. All the basic ingredients are there for something creepy.

But from the beginning, the movie felt messy.

The horror sequences are not scary. They rely heavily on jump scares, and most of them are predictable. Worse, the scenes don’t flow naturally. Things happen, then more things happen, but the cause and effect feels weak.

The opening haunted-house sequence already shows the problem. Two men enter the house to scan it, one looks like he dies, but then he doesn’t. He’s possessed, ends up in hospital, later comes back, gets controlled again, and dies in front of the lead character.

That whole chain felt ridiculous. Not frightening. Just messy.

What worked

Very little, honestly.

The only part that gave me anything was near the end, when the lead finds an exorcist master to help remove the spirit from his wife. Even that was ridiculous, but at least it felt like the movie was finally trying to move somewhere.

The emotional VR moment with the wife near the ending was also somewhat touching. Not logical, not fully earned, but emotionally it had something.

That’s about it.

What didn’t

Almost everything else.

• The jump scares are predictable.
• The horror logic is weak.
• The story feels messy from the start.
• The clay doll concept isn’t used well enough.
• The possession sequences feel random rather than frightening.
• The movie keeps asking for suspension of disbelief, but doesn’t build enough internal logic to deserve it.

I can accept supernatural horror being unrealistic. That’s not the issue.

The issue is that even within its own horror logic, this movie doesn’t hold together.

What others think

The wider response seems mixed. Netflix classifies it as a Taiwanese supernatural horror film, and some viewers have praised the folklore elements and creepy doll concept. Other reactions are far less forgiving, especially around the messy storytelling and predictable scares.  

I’m definitely on the harsher side here.

Final thoughts

I don’t have much positive to say.

This wasn’t scary, wasn’t coherent, and wasn’t captivating enough to excuse the mess. For horror to work, I need either fear, atmosphere, logic, or emotional pull. This barely gave me any of those.

So this lands at 2 / 10.

A horror movie can be strange.
It can be supernatural.
It can be unbelievable.

But it still needs to make sense within its own nightmare.

This one didn’t.