MMFF 2017: Review of HAUNTED FOREST: Turbid and Tangled

December 27, 2017

For every Metro Manila Filmfest, there is usually a horror movie or two to scare the holiday audiences. For this year, there is only one horror film in the lineup and it is this film from Regal Films, directed by Ian Lorenos (who directed "Mano Po 7: Chinoy" last year also for Regal). Even if the unimaginative title does not sound promising, as a fan of Pinoy horror films, I was still curious to see what this was going to be about.

In an unnamed town, young ladies are dying one after the other, all found tangled up in a web of wooden vines that were from an ancient tree. The local policemen were investigating the puzzling case but were perplexed because the folks seemed to be believe that a supernatural creature called the "sitsit," a demon from the trees, was behind these deaths. 

Meanwhile, the police inspector assigned to the case, Aris Guzman (Raymart Santiago), is likewise dealing with his problematic daughter Nica (Jane Oineza), who hated him for not being there for her when her mother died. One day, while having a picnic at the river with her cousin Midge (Maris Racal) and her friends RJ (Jameson Blake) and Andre (Jon Lucas), Nica seemingly got possessed by an occult being which had her feeling and behaving oddly.

The poor substandard visual effects were evident from those first scenes with those terribly fake-looking computer-generated "flies" and those ugly creeping "vines". It is already 2017, but it seemed like no progress happened in terms of special effects since those Shake Rattle and Roll films of old. The visual effects in those SRR films were even better given the technology available in the years when they were released. 

The terrible face and body makeup on Anthony Falcon as the "sitsit" (or "Nilalang" as this monster was called in the end credits) did not help the film's cause. He was obviously just an actor just running around there, like any  "haunted house". There is no effort to suspend the audience's disbelief. Maybe it would have been better if this character was not seen at all. They should realize that imagination works better than lousy make-up to inspire fear.

The more senior actors like Raymart Santiago, Joey Marquez (in and out as Nardo, Raymart's police chief), Dido dela Paz (as Mang Feleo, the Latin-praying father of one of the first victims) and Beverly Salviejo (as Ate Merly, Raymart's elder sister) tried to do something with their roles given them, but their characters were so badly written and were given absurd things to do. With the dense, obtuse decisions and acts the police characters were doing here, was it also a statement about their brutality and cluelessness? 

However, the younger actors were just coasting along with unrealistic efforts. It did not help that there was a "teen" romance angle that was being stuffed into the story that went nowhere since the actors do not have chemistry. I know Jameson Blake as a good actor from "2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten" (Peterson Vargas, 2016), but here he was reduced to making "cute" moves on a miscast Jane Oineza, who already looked too mature to be a teenager. Maris Racal and Jon Lucas were wasted, hardly given anything to do at all, except apart from barbecuing kebabs or ride carnival rides.

Despite all its standard efforts with the sound effects to be creepy, there was no sense of dread at all felt in this film. The flow was turgid and felt very long. In fact, a noisy group of girls in the theater I watched in was merely screaming at random parts towards the end just to have the fun they were hoping for, because unfortunately, there were no genuine scares at all in this total disappointment of a film to be worth its price of admission. 3/10.