Movie review: Arthouse aswangs in 'Pangarap Kong Oskars'

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For years, film producer Bobby B (Paolo Contis) had been slaving away under his Boss (Jon Santos), owner of the film studio where he worked. However, because of a bad disagreement between them, Bobby decided to quit his job. That night, his old friend Danny M. Zallian "DMZ" (Joross Gamboa) presented Bobby a script he had written, envisioning that it can be made into an artistic film which win them an Oscar award, Bobby's fervent dream.

Upon reading the screenplay, Bobby believed in its great potential. It would be a found footage type of horror film about a film crew that encountered Filipino monsters in the forest. Together with his assistant Odessa (Kate Alejandrino), Bobby impulsively joined DMZ on a ferry boat to Catanduanes to begin filming this movie. When they were there, it dawned on Bobby that he had no budget for special effects and needed to think outside the box.

In 2018, film studio MAVX released an unassuming comedy film entitled "Ang Pangarap Kong Holdap" about three petty crooks and the biggest heist of their career. This film exceeded expectations and became a critical and box-office hit, and eventually even released on Netflix. Paolo Contis and Kate Alejandrino were in the main cast of that film, and now they are both part of this new MAVX release whose similar-sounding title stating a different dream.

Writer-director Jules M. Katanyag's twist of using "real" aswang as indie actors because of financial constraints was a stroke of genius. This was executed as a film within a film. We see DMZ filming the scenes, and later get to watch a rough cut of this film, which had the same scenes we had just seen. The special effects for the manananggal (Faye Lorenzo), kapre (Milo Elmido Jr.) and the Banga were very crude and unconvincing due to budget.

It was a nice touch that DMZ's script was based on the tales of his grandmother Sina (Erlinda Villalobos). Long Mejia played Pedro, keeper of the legendary jewel that kept the aswang in check, and an advocate for harmony between humans and aswang. As film editor Chanda, J-mee Katanyag should have been given more screen time, because her rough cut was essential to the plot. In fact, more focus on film crew roles would have been educational.

That the cast and crew of Bobby's film and the folkoric monsters were all played by neophyte actors whose poor acting quality diminished audience impact. Because of this, many jokes missed their mark, especially one particularly raunchy gag about manananggal's bottom half. Fortunately, despite their flawed characters, the likable Contis and ebullient Gamboa still manage to rally the audience to root for their Oscar aspirations. 6/10.

This review was originally published in the author's blog, "Fred Said."