Not your typical vampires (Aswang (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Aswang (DVD)
Date:	26.01.07 (234 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's a pretty decent horror film

Disadvantages: It's kind of predictable and the effects aren't so great

This is a review of just the film.

Know what an Aswang is? No? It’s a kind of vampire found in the Philippines. It typically preys on unborn babies using its unnaturally long tongue. Bet you’re glad you asked now! (What? You didn’t ask? Oh.)

This is a low budget independent American horror from 1994. It didn’t make much of a splash on release, probably because it was heavily cut. As with almost any horror film, it’s only really worth seeing it uncut. It’s not at all bad, and probably worth hunting down if you’re a horror enthusiast. A (region 1) DVD has been released by Mondo Macabro, specialists in obscure and weird horror, and so it shouldn’t be hard to find.

A young woman, Katrina, is pregnant. She doesn’t want the baby, so makes a deal with a childless couple, the Nulls, to hand the baby over to them when it’s born. However, in order for Robert Null to inherit his family estate, it’s necessary for Katrina to pretend to be his wife for the last few months of her pregnancy and go live with him in his family’s decaying mansion. There she has to contend with a sinister Philippino servant, a crippled mother-in-law, and a mysterious sister who lives in a small cottage. Meanwhile, a tourist staying nearby keeps finding strange, slimy little cocoons in the woods which contain things that look remarkably like babies’ skeletons.

You can probably guess what happens. In fact it’s pretty easy to second-guess the film throughout. Major plot points are way too obvious (the Nulls are clearly not what they seem, right from the start; as soon as Katrina is warned never to try and visit Robert’s sister you know full well that she will do – and what she’ll find when she does). And even small shock moments can be seen coming a mile off – although I won’t spoil any of them for you. The one original touch is in using a Philippino legend that few American (or British) people will know of. The Aswang is a creepy idea, with its hunger for foetuses and unpleasant long tongue. Pregnancy in horror movies usually focuses on the mother’s fear of what she may give birth to (Rosemary’s Baby kicked off that little sub-genre); the only other film I know of that features an undead threat to the unborn is the crazy Indonesian movie Mystics in Bali, and the vampire in that one is far sillier looking.

The film isn’t completely successful in what it tries to do, but it does notch up some great suspense moments. The whole mood of the house and family that Katrina finds herself trapped with is creepy and has an almost Faulknerian gothic feel to it. The cold, aloof Robert, his weird mother with her oxygen mask and her fondness for chickens, and their intimidating servant, who refers to herself in the third person – as well as the promise/threat of the reclusive sister – conjure up kind of a halfway point between the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Absalom Absalom. (Another odd literary influence is The Merchant of Venice – one of the characters goes a bit Shylock, but without the racism).

But for the most part Aswang is happy to take its inspiration from the usual sources. Texas Chainsaw is evoked frequently, from the interior of the sister’s home to the rather more blatant girl-being-chased-by-man-with-chainsaw sequences. There’s also a lot of stuff taken straight from Evil Dead (especially the rapid camera movements in the woods at night) and a decent dream sequence that could have come from Twin Peaks. Lots of other little bits and pieces are horror film clichés, from the thick sheriff to the psycho villain singing nursery rhymes. And the ‘twist’ ending is so predictable that anyone who doesn’t see it coming should be banned from ever watching another horror film for as long as they live.

But although it’s not exactly full of innovation, there are enough crazy and perverse little moments to make it worthwhile. It’s very low budget, so the cast are all unknowns. The acting could be a lot better. The woodenness of some of the performances kind of works to the film’s advantage in the early stages when everyone’s being mysterious, but later on it starts to weight things down a bit. Robert, the main villain, gives a splendidly eccentric performance, veering between utterly deadpan and screamingly camp – often in the same sentence – but I’m not sure whether that was deliberate on his part. He’s certainly the most entertaining performer, although poor, victimised Katrina doesn’t do too badly with her damsel in distress stuff.

The special effects aren’t so great. I was expecting a tidal wave of gore, given that the film’s minimal reputation hinges on it being schlockily nasty. There’s far less of the red stuff than I’d hoped, and most of the deaths and dismemberments and so forth are really fairly typical for a film of this type. And the few creepy ideas (a vampire’s long tongue inserted into someone’s forearm and wriggling around under the skin) aren’t executed quite well enough to work. Still, at least it’s unafraid to show the nastiness. I suspect its reputation for being unpleasant comes more from the concept of a vampire going after pregnant women – there’s a certain ‘ewww’ factor about that which will probably put people off. But the film never quite lapses into bad taste – perhaps it should have done. There’s a bit of nudity in the opening credits, but otherwise it’s surprisingly chaste.

Otherwise, it’s all decent enough. Apart from the effects and the acting, everything else is perfectly competent. The film-makers don’t seem to have done a lot other than this, which is a shame – as a first film it’s a worthy effort. Worth a look, as I said, if you’re into horror – it’s nice to see something from the mid-90s that’s actually enjoyable. It’ll make you jump a few times and probably make you laugh. What more could you want?

Summary: Quirky low-budget horror movie about an unusual vampire