They are accosted on the road by a pack of sinister women with long hair, the Kubots, led by Veron (Elizabeth Oropesa) who overturns their bus. Veron is the wife of the chief aswang in the first movie (Roi Vinzaon), so she takes revenge on Macoy by killing Sonia and abducting their baby.
But it turns out that the Kubots are not the primary enemies of Macoy in this movie. And this is quite a letdown since the way the Kubots fight, using their long tresses as tentacles that strangle their victims, really employs spectacular CGI effects. Macoy is given another opponent in KC Montero, an English-speaking balikbayan aswang who turns ordinary people into aswangs by feeding them hotdogs made of human flesh.
Macoy finds an ally in Isabelle Daza, a doctor who turns out to be an aswang with a conscience and sides with humans. Director Erik Matti and his scriptwriter, Michiko Yamamoto, seems to have difficulty forwarding their narrative. Its flow is often bogged down by their needless attempts at comedy that are mostly ineffective. We know that Joey Marquez as Dingdong’s father in law and Lotlot de Leon as his aunt won best supporting actor and actress awards for their performances here, but they honestly don’t contribute anything significant to the story.
Even more annoying are the foolish and lousy antics of Ramon Bautista and Bogart the Explorer as cartoonish bumbling cops. The sequence where they act like filmmakers and actors using a cellphone to film their stupidity is just over extended, and so it drags. We just felt truly jubilant when they were swallowed by the machine that turns people into mince meat.
While they are being chased by bounty hunters, Isabelle does a comic act where she is made to look silly acting like a monkey. It could have been a complete disaster had not Isabelle performed with such aplomb and assurance. But she impresses us more in the stunts she did in Chinese-style action sequences that are executed with harness.
Dingdong does well looking grief-stricken and depressed after Sonia died, but he is better in action hero mode when he fights the aswang with a contraption attached to his arm after his right hand got amputated in the car crash. Julie Anne San Jose and rapper Abra are wasted and were not really given much to do.
All in all, “Tiktik” is definitely better than “Kubot”. It has lesser boringga factor, moves more swiftly than the sequel, is more effective in its attempts at humor and has more thrilling, suspense-filled set pieces. But the sequel ends with more impact with the introduction of a new character. They’ve made “Aswang Chronicles” a franchise so they’re presuming there will be a Part 3. And Dingdong’s new adversary is this new character who shows up at final scene of “Kubot”. You have to watch “Kubot” to see who this new villain will be. Clue: Dingdong will be seeing her at the altar today.
