Espantaho: The story of Monet and her mother Rosa, who are mourning over the death of the family patriarch Pabling. During the nine days of pasiyam, dark secrets and a malevolent plot start to unravel.

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Introduction

When I saw that Chito S. Roño was directing Espantaho, I was ecstatic. Direct Chito has been known to direct good horror movies, specially during the early 2000s, with Sukob (2006) and Feng Shui (2004) being my favorites. This one however didn’t live up to those standards.

Set in the quiet town of Mexico, Pampanga, Espantaho follows Monet (Judy Ann Santos) in her family’s ancestral home, taking part in the pasiyam (a traditional nine-day mourning period) after her father, Pabling (Emil Sandoval), passes away. Things quickly get tense when Pabling’s legal wife, Adele (Chanda Romero), and her kids, Roy (Mon Confiado) and Andie (Janice de Belen), show up to stake their claim on the family property. While the family is already dealing with drama and old wounds, a strange painting of a scarecrow arrives at the house—and soon after, people start mysteriously disappearing. As creepy events unfold, buried secrets begin to surface, pushing the family into a terrifying showdown with a sinister supernatural force.

Characters and dialogues

Espantaho was able to get a wide array of talents, most of whom have legendary status in Philippine cinema. Unfortunately, none of them rose to the occassion. At the very least, Judy Ann Santos was able to project her emotions.

It was hard to care for any of them, they had dialogues and emotions to convey, but none of which reached the audience. It was like a checklist whenever someone disappears.

None of the characters had any chemistry to each other, not the couple, not as siblings, even not as their sons/daughters.

Their facial expressions and reaction to the scene at hand wasn’t accurate. Another reason why the “horror” element here was irrelevant.

The dialogue was lackluster and most of it was going around and around, their arguement just loops on itself and wastes time. Specially when they were trying to rush to do something, they had to say so many things before actually solving it. It didn’t make sense, situation and scene-wise.

Effects

You need to have good imagination to make this work. The CGI was… ok., I mean, for Philippine cinema standards, it was good. But you really need to immerse yourself to those CGI moments to actually appreciate it. The idea was there, the execution was lacking.

Confusing genre

Labeled as “Horror” but it wasn’t really scary. Out of 5, I’d say 0.5-1 at best. It’s a confusing mess of melodrama, family feuds, inheritance problems, and bitter ex-wives. They wanted to do so much that the movie forgot what it was aiming for. Better if they made Espantaho into a telenovela series with some horror elements added to it.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for some good Filipino Horror, look elsewhere, this is not it and you’re going to hate yourself for wasting time on it. Also, the ending was predictable. If you want to see people screaming at each other like the usual things we see in telenovelas, added a touch of cheap horror jump scares, then you’ve found yourself a movie to watch. This was as bad as Pwera Usog (2017).

I’d recommend Mallari (2023) over this garbage any day.