Iza Calzado
We’re often told not to let our personal troubles affect our work. But what happens when career-related woes follow us home, “take over” our family life, and turn it upside down? Ask Dennis (Ian Veneracion), the beleaguered reporter at the center of Dan Villegas’ creepy and proficiently helmed chiller, “Ilawod.”
After witnessing a pagan ritual exorcising a relentless water elemental from a frail housewife, Dennis begins to notice increasingly disturbing behavior and changes in the way his wife Kathy (Iza Calzado), 12-year-old son Ben (Harvey Bautista), and tweener daughter Bea (Xyriel Manabat) interact with him—and with one another.
The quartet’s heretofore comfortable life takes a turn for the twisted after Ben finds himself smitten with mysterious, kamison-clad teenager Isla (Therese Malvar), who’s always around when Ben passes by the sprawling swimming pool of the condominium building where they live.
As Dennis becomes startlingly sensitive and short-tempered, his wife often finds herself sweating profusely even in cold or well-ventilated rooms. Kathy even dreams of jumping off high-rise buildings—with a wicked smile!
Ian Veneracion
For her part, Bea is driven out of her wits when vile creatures start to go bump in the night—and, more terrifyingly, under her bed.
To make matters worse, she sees the leering mug of the possessive teenage seductress her kuya prefers to spend most of his time with!
When Ben becomes more distant and retreats further into his own world, he starts cutting himself with a blade to prove his love and devotion to the two-faced changeling that has captured his young heart. Is the love of his family enough to save Ben?
Villegas aces his career-expanding foray into the macabre. The movie isn’t the usual “loud and shrill” chiller that local moviegoers are used to seeing, but its darkly cerebral take on the ever-changing dynamics of our continually evolving world allows the director to take a breather from the popular, hugot-inducing rom-coms he’s famous for. It’s a bracing change of pace that demonstrates his filmmaking versatility and verve.
The movie is a jolting slow burn lavished with care, context, menacing mood and subtle shades of creative innovation.
It laces its gratifying family-fueled drama with potent scare tactics that will drive viewers to the edge of their seats.
As it hurtles onward and forward with Villegas’ confident storytelling style, the production draws viewers’ attention by packing its dark tale with honest portrayals and hair-raising thrills that are as sparingly utilized as they are well-timed.
While it hews close to the Asian horror formula, “Ilawod’s” attention-grabbing tricks and predictable contrivances are well-worn and less cluttered.
Therese Malvar (left) and Harvey Bautista
Ian is a reliable lead, convincingly shuttling between a disengaged media man and a despondent patriarch at the desperate end of his tether—and we appreciate his “perceptibly conscious” decision to veer as far away from acting choices that could be viewed as thespically phlegmatic.
Just as relatable are the performances turned in by Iza and Xyriel. But Harvey gets the showier role of the “possessed” adolescent—and he takes full advantage of the opportunity to shine in it, by not “overplaying” his character’s motives.
There’s not much backstory about the whys and wherefores of the sinister creature called Ilawod (which means “downstream”), but its intriguing ambiguity only fuels its compelling—and mortifying—mystique, which Villegas exploits to convincing effect.