Critical response
Don Anelli of Asian Movie Pulse gave the film a generally positive review, describing it as a "highly enjoyable genre effort" with a strong atmosphere of unease and solid supernatural sequences. He praised the screenplay for effectively building tension through the plantation’s dark history, as well as the film's unique integration of local folklore, black magic rituals, and demonic entities. However, Anelli criticized the movie's pacing and runtime, noting that it felt "overlong and bloated" due to an excessive number of subplots and a chaotic, overstuffed climax that made the plot difficult to follow.
A review from Herald Sulsel characterized Pabrik Gula as a horror-comedy that struggles to break free from long-standing genre clichés. While the review acknowledged the film's attempts to balance eerie supernatural elements with comedic relief, it noted that the narrative ultimately feels trapped in a familiar and predictable formula, preventing it from offering anything genuinely new to the genre.
Writing for Suara Merdeka Jatim Mohammad Hayun highlighted how Pabrik Gula effectively utilizes its industrial setting to uncover dark, long-hidden secrets. The publication noted that the film succeeds in building an unsettling atmosphere by intertwining the grim history of the sugar mill with local supernatural occurrences. However, the review also pointed out that while the premise of uncovering these dark secrets is compelling, the execution occasionally falls back on familiar horror tropes, which slightly diminishes the impact of its central mystery.
