Makoy (Dingdong Dantes) follows his pregnant girlfriend, Sonia (Lovi Poe), to a town called Pulupandan in some unspecified province to convince her to return with him to the city. He faces strong opposition from Sonia’s termagant mom (Janice de Belen) but her “under the saya” dad (Joey Marquez) is more sympathetic to him and even takes him to the market to buy a pig for Sonia’s surprise birthday celebration.
Macoy is uncouth and arrogant and his tough guy stance incurs the ire of some young people (led by LJ Reyes and RJ Salvador) who sell him a pig that later turns out to be RJ, who belongs to a clan of “aswangs” that inhabit the town. RJ tries to eat the baby in Lovi’s baby but Makoy kills him. Soon, the rest of the aswang family lay siege on the house of Sonia’s family, led by Mike Gayoso.
They turn out to be a bunch of inept aswangs. Makoy easily cuts both hands of LJ and later also cuts her body into half. Makoy also kills another fat boy aswang. Soon, more aswangs attack them, led by the aswang patriarch called Tatang (Roi Vinzon.) The battalion of aswangs who are with him are transformed into CGI monsters. This proved to be more of a liability as the aswangs were more scary when they are human. As CGI creatures, they’re not that menacing as they look more like the video game creations we see in Timezone arcades.
As a whole, the movie is quite entertaining and the technology used is quite commendably well crafted, like the animation used in the opening title credits. The cinematography is generally great, the lighting even of the dark scenes very competent, with majority of the CGI shots creatively composed. But the digital monsters added in the live action sequences are not seamlessly rendered and some shots look so mediocre. The musical score uses rock songs and they’re often fine, but there are some instances when they just won’t stop.
There are some truly exciting parts but when they combine it with comedy, the end result is not always effective as it’s not at all campy. Sometimes it even gets on the way and only stalls the fluidity of the narrative, causing some lull or “laylay” moments and bogging down what should be the mounting and relentless thrills in some scenes. This could have been cured by editing to make the excitement nonstop and furiously paced, like in other “siege movies” of this genre such as “Evil Dead” and “Night of the Living Dead”. The best example is when Janice was being attacked by an aswang and Joey Marquez just stands there then even plays tag with the aswang pulling Janice from opposite directions. Another one is when they talk without sound so the aswangs won’t hear them. It’s supposed to be funny but after a while, it comes out as ridiculous.
Dingdong is projected as a rugged action star in this movie, even doing an Indiana Jones with a bullwhip as he fights the aswangs. He tries doing the patented “barumbado” Robin Padilla act and pulls it off quite well, but we still prefer him as the well scrubbed leading man-matinee idol type. Lovi also does well as the pregnant leading lady, particularly in the scenes where she tells Makoy to go home as she’s fed up with him. She even has a convincing childbirth scene. Janice is perfect as the domineering wife-mother while Joey is convincing as the henpecked husband. Also properly menacing are Roi Vinzon, Mike Gayoso and LJ Reyes as the aswangs. The acting really helped to make the movie more worth watching.
