Santigwar is about a bunch of Aswang and the people who hunt them, much like a low budget, low quality version of Underworld made with a budget of 25 pesos. Instead of focusing on this generational supernatural war, the film elects to focus on the efforts of four horny bois as they try (and fail) to bang the women they're associated with. It's not hard to see why, since Audrey Miles is one of the Aswang.
The film doesn't make a lot of sense, and there's a bit of silliness along the way. The horny bois come across a tree with ominous symbols carved on the surface. One of those ominous scary symbols is a Star of David. Apparently the film is warning us against the Jewish. In another scene, a blatantly scary old woman encounters the boy gang, none of whom find this development scary at all.
That's too bad, because Santigwar isn't exactly Joven Tan's worst film (it's probably not even his worst horror film, considering Otlum exists). But there's a laziness to the whole thing that turned me off completely from it.
Let me start off by saying Bobby Bonifacio Jr.'s Hellcome Home has a terrible first act. Bonifacio has apparently not learned anything from the making of his previous film, Hospicio, where an attempt to build dread is done by chaining together several jump scares in a row (sometimes, clustered together in the span of five minutes). Nothing about it is scary or dreadful, and the film made me disengage from it after ten minutes.
Once the second act starts, things get a lot more interesting. It flashes back to the past, and its own self-contained story, about a family that tears itself apart thanks to its own neuroses, is quite engaging. This part could stand up on its own, and this segment presented by itself would have been better than what we got.
The third act tries to recontextualize the horror of the first act. It doesn't make the first act any better, but it at least justifies its existence. There are a few great, tense scenes here, and the hyperactive preference towards jump cuts is all but absent.
It's better than Santigwar, but it's deeply flawed in its own way. I'd recommend it over the other film, but hey, Sadako's still showing this week too.
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