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Reviews
Tía Madré (2019)
Low budget horror
Achieves great heights when the director shows restraint. Some parts push the horror too much and it loses me. But really, really great in many parts. Superb performance from Cherie Gil who I'm used to seeing in glamorous roles. She should have gotten an Urian nomination here (she instead won for her performance in Citizen Jake which I think is the inferior film). Janna Agoncillo who played the tortured daughter is a surprising revelation. Carl Palaganas sticks out because he obviously got the role for being an albino which is a pretty hard role to cast.
All in all, this is one of the better horror pinoy films. Better than a lot of bigger-budgeted ones. Glad that it's on Netflix now because more people need to see this. Looking forward to seeing more stuff from the director, Eve Baswel.
Open Water (2003)
Rewatch
I remember seeing this almost 20 years ago and how much it impressed me. Really terrifying for me especially since, at that time, I was not much of a swimmer and was terrified of the sea and what lies beneath. Now that I've gotten older, learned to swim and loved the water - not to mention, seen more independent, micro-budget films - it's not as great as I thought it was. But still a very enjoyable movie and worth watching.
It's really the first 10 minutes that I really hated. It was sloppy filmmaking, the shots, the editing, etc. The film could really benefit if that whole thing was cut out. It's pretty obvious that the filmmakers are better at filming scenes in the water. The pace and tone of that was completely different and they hit the right notes to amp up the tension and terror. But every time the scenes are on land, they really fumble. Like they couldn't find their rhythm. So ito actually great that the film is like 90 percent on water. Otherwise, I would've rated this much lower.
Looking (2016)
The series deserved better
This shouldn't have been a movie. The series was so nuanced and amazingly written but this was just an extended version of a finale episode that basically just wraps everything up. Doing a 30 minute cut of this wouldve sufficed if all they really wanted to do was wrap things up (and that's all they did obviously).
I mean, why make a movie where all the important plot points have already happened (in the series) and not even bother to make new ones for it to deserve to be called an actual movie? It just makes me angry.
The show deserved better! The characters deserved better! Their stories deserved better!
Loved the series. Hated this movie.