A found footage that follows a producer and her news crew as they follow a story of aswang killings in Cagayan De Oro. But as the day continue, they discover the disturbing truth behind these gory murders as they get lost in the jungle and faces an otherwordly encounter.
✰✰✰✰ out of 5 stars. To start with, this is not the very first found footage film from the Philipines that I know. If I'm not mistaken, there was another one that came before this entitled The Diplomat Hotel (2013). But this found footage attempt from Sherad Anthony Sanchez looks much more promising and effectively uses the format to it's advantage. The film is one of the entries from last year's Cinema One Originals. When I first heard about it, I was excited to see it. Unfortunately, the film only had a very limited screening that time and I wasn't able to catch it. This year, it was given a screening by the film festival so I immediately grabbed the chance to watch it.
To be honest, I have never seen a Filipino movie this weird before. Yes, the word WEIRD is creeping out of every scene and every plot twist of the movie. It features some sort-of-cult, some alien like beings that light up in the darkness of the night, some crazy villagers, killer soldiers and all sort's of otherwordly stuff that really blew me away. It was a total mindfuck. And that it what made the experince so memorable. The film doesn't offer a realistic plot as it focuses more on giving the viewers an unusual movie experience. It keeps on putting us in all sorts of dangerous paths and even though our minds are already telling us that everything that's happening on screen is too absurb already, we just kept going along for the ride. Again, I havenever seen a Filipino movie like this. And I'm pretty sure that the rest of you who have seen it will agree.
The acting was okay, although one of the characters, Barbie, will definitely pull out some laughs (intentional) with his/ her campy acting. Jessy Mendiola seems like the perfect fit for the lead of this film, alongside JC De Castro who isn't given much screen time, probably because he is the camera man in the film and he hides behind the lens most of the time. The script was mostly realistic, but as the movie delves deeper into it's out of this world proceedings, you just wont care about the script anymore. You're just staying for the ride.
All in all, it was definitely one of my most unforgettable movie experiences this year. A clever, total mindfuck.
Directed by Sherad Anthony Sanchez, starring Jessy Mendiola, JC De Vera, Barbie Capacio, Karl Medina and Joel Saracho
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