Review: Mallari

Spoilers ahead.

Mallari holds a lot of promise. It's said that he predates Jack the Ripper, the most famous serial killer in the world. While Severino Mallari is not as known he's infamous for being the first (documented) serial killer in the PH. 

I really wished the writers have stopped there. They could have literally wrote an entire film with that simple premise but they had to do so many things at once the severity of his crimes have then taken a back seat. There's so many elements in the film that it felt like they wanted to throw everything in the pot to cater to different demographics all at once. 

Subtlety would have saved Mallari in my opinion. There are expositions that are kind of OK not to explain, like calling themselves travelers and then eventually it was astral projection even if they can take some things? I didn't know you can astral project blankets and videotapes. They needed to show things in some, and probably not pay too much attention to things that don't really matter. 

I'm not a fan of horror movies in general because one of the things I hate are jump scares due to the fact that I get frightened easily. My mom and I constantly startle each other in our home. That's how bad it is. In Mallari you have jump scares sure, and they are your typical quick ghosts who are suddenly in your face. What I would have loved to see here and I think could have been more effective is if they don't focus on the dead people in the background too much. There's a scene that lingered far too long on hanging feet behind the curtain which if it was me I would have edited it not too obvious. I feel like to make those scenes creepier, they could have had those ghosts just be there in the scene for the viewers to find. Best example would be Saiko! The Large Family where the creepy mom would stalk in the scenes and you would miss it on your blinks. Rewatching those scenes was definitely terrifying.  

The reveal of the mom's (Gloria Diaz) ailment was a bit of a let down as well. I'm not a fan of it because the reveal felt like it would have been more effective if we didn't have too much exposition on those moments. I mean do we really need to be explained to why those women victimized the mom? Can't you just show it to us instead of the characters literally explaining what's happening? I fee like most Filipino movies suffer in this, they tend to be all talk no show.

There's nothing wrong with swerving to fantastical elements in the movie but again, subtlety would have been great. But no, even if I haven't seen the trailer, I already know there's going to be folklore and aswangs involved because of how it was presented. Imagine the mindfck it would have been if were shown 2 hrs of "realistic" portrayal of a serial killer going mad until we get to know that it's a sacrifice for her mom to eat because she's now a manananggal! We would have been mindblown!

Now on to Lucas (JC Santos). 

You know, I actually liked how frightened Agnes (Janella Salvador) was when she saw the machete on the priest's belt and I was actually scared along with her. Would have been an unexpected reveal since the priest is too jolly, a nice cover for I don't know, maybe a fanatic of the Mallaris if ever. We already know he has a soft spot for the killer right? 

This was not the case with Lucas who when revealed to be the modern day killer, it felt so much meh. It has nothing to do with the actor, really he's really good. But imo being the bad guy is actually out of character for him and it's not shocking even though they tried to make it to be. Mallari at some point asked why does he (Lucas) involve himself in his affairs and even without that obvious question we are already aware that their families are already intertwined from the start. It's a weird choice because Lucas already said that his family is to protect Mallari's so why would he attack them in the first place? He attempted to kill the lineage. If he's insistent in knowing where the monster was passed on and finds out through the investigation of Mallari's, who's he's going to pass it to if the Mallaris are wiped out? Now if the reason is he's cleaning the streets, then why would he wait for Mallari to come back? He could as easily killed sinners in Manila too. Why won't he just stayed in Pampanga if he didn't like killing in Manila? Why would he want people to suspect Mallari in the first place? Because again, he said he's supposed to protect them! Won't it be better if he would have been on Mallari's side?

Back to Mallari (Piolo Pascual)

The thing is switching to too many characters felt like there's not much focus on who the titular character that is supposed to be. We barely had screentime with Father Severino and in those small scenes we really have nothing to care for, not to him, neither to the victims. I wasn't even invested in the killings since we have not seen a lot of it! There's 57 deaths. Even just a few scenes to show the complexity of the characters would have invoked mixed feelings to the audience. Like show us that not everyone of the victims are just inherently bad because that's how it is in real life. For example, he could have killed a prostitute only to find out that she's just trying to get by feeding her babies. This would have made Mallari question his motives and if the killings were worth it. We haven't seen much about them, we didn't even had the chance to hate him or mind our own morals along with it. 

The writers could even made it more effective if they spent most of the time showing how vile he really is until such point we are presented of the reason of why he began to kill. Little by little introduce the a few fantastical elements until you show us the reveal. The descent to madness would have been an amazing thing to watch because by then we are not sure if he's just hallucinating things or if it was indeed the "truth" and will leave the audience to debate on how "real" the aswang is.

Another to note is why are the dead people from the film at the house? They weren't killed by him right? Those were just the ones he made a video of, and those weren't even connected to the Severino killings since this is after he was already dead. Why are they even haunting him? It's an unnecessary use of ghosts. For me they add 0 value to anything.   

Overall, it's a 6/10 for me. Would have been great, it's not a waste of 2hrs++ but I'm glad it's in Netflix as I would have been a bit pissed paying for it in the cinemas.