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The Philippine Horror Movie scene has had a very interesting existence, to say the least. Our culture is ripe with legends and fables about supernatural beings committing atrocities, and many variations of these tales have made their way to the silver screen - whether that be a refrigerator eating an unwelcome houseguest or centuries-old entities luring influencers to a “collab” to harvest their fresh flesh and blood. Sometimes, we get tales of a feminine specter haunting a commonly used thoroughfare in Quezon City, and sometimes, we’ll get a tale about the horrors that have befallen families simply because they’ve set wedding dates so close to each other.
One horror trope, which has not been explored much in Filipino cinema is that of the serial killer slasher film. One film dares to go deeper into that sub-genre, an attempt that has elicited much anticipation and hype. The question is, does the film live up to said hype?
Mallari stars Piolo Pascual in a very ambitious role as three people bearing the same face: Fr. Severino Mallari (a real-life priest whose serial killing spree during the 1800s has been the subject of much interest in recent times, especially with the advent of true crime limited series littering almost all of the streaming services in the land), Johnrey Mallari (a descendant of Severino who serves as a documentarian during the 2nd World War), and Jonathan Mallari de Dios (another descendant of Severino’s in the present time who is now a doctor looking for a cure for a loved one). In their respective timelines, they encounter mysteries that will push them to commit acts of barbarity and drive them to the brink of insanity.
As a casual follower of the local film scene, it warms my heart to see that, slowly but surely, our technical prowess is catching up with the rest of the world’s. Gone are the days of very obvious chroma key errors making it to the final cut of a film, and are now replaced with slickly made, well-polished, visually stunning films that deserve praise in that aspect of filmmaking.
"Praise must be given to two specific teams working on this film: Firstly, the VFX team led by Gaspar Mangarin and the Sound team led by Fatima Nerikka Salim and Immanuel Verona."
They are the true MVPs of Mallari, elevating what should’ve been a rote, run-of-the-mill horror film released for the holidays into a competent and, dare we say, well-made work of art. However, we will stop heaping our praises onto the film right there.
Horror films are quite simple cinematic entities, to be honest. All you need is a protagonist discovering some hitherto unknown evil thing that’s either troubling them or may be the answer to their troubles and an antagonist (usually a supernatural being) that will do everything to either stop them from ending their misery or will orchestrate events that will lead to the evil being perpetuated. Simple, right? Where it gets tricky (and downright annoying) is when the movie gets all “cute” and tries all sorts of narrative “sleights of hand” in hopes of masking its flaws.
"Though well-made and well-acted (including a stellar turn from JC Santos), a head-scratching script can't quite save Mallari from being a baffling mess."
The protagonist is a two-dimensional walking trope machine whose only “character trait” (in a meta sense) is them being portrayed by a famous actor? We’ll say that the lead character can do “astral projection”. The script forgot to clearly show (not tell) its audience the mechanics of the aforementioned “astral projection” mumbo-jumbo? Insert a side character (supposedly a man of the cloth with dignity) whose only character trait is to make snide, Gen Z-pandering remarks to elicit cheap laughs.
We aren’t privy to the timeline of when this film was conceived or when pre-production began, but we’re pretty sure that the filmmakers were able to see that an indie film called Talk to Me came out in 2023 as well. The little film that could (written and directed by YouTubers no less) absolutely showed everyone that a simple premise (with airtight logic) sprinkled with smartly planned jumpscares and spine-chillingly disturbing imagery could make all the difference (and all the money) in the world.
"We’re all in for the Filipino film industry to take unique risks and try something that’s never been done before, but it would be foolish not to take notes from other people who have done the work much better elsewhere."
And we guess that’s where the buck will stop for Mallari - unless our local film scene understands that it needs to learn from the best in order to be the best, we’ll continue to churn out visually stunning but narratively head-scratching output that will forever be categorized as “well, that’s good enough for a first attempt.”
Mallari is one of the films showcased during the 49th Metro Manila Film Festival. Accolades include 3rd Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for JC Santos, Best Musical Score for Von de Guzman and Best Visual Effects for Gaspar Mangalin.
Cinegeeks rating : B
Watch the trailer here:
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