Dalaw Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A woman fears she is being haunted by the ghost of her dead husband after remarrying.

Review: First let me explain that "dalaw" means something like "visitor" in tagalog, but if any Filipinos out there want to give me better contextual clarification that would be appreciated! Anyway, this is yet another mixed bag since we have a plot dependent on a twist that I, or anyone could have, predicted within the first 10 minutes. As I've stated many times, if you can't properly execute a major plot twist, you should compensate somehow else along the way to make it feel worth the ride to watch the movie. Unfortunately, this film's only other form of entertainment was the scare-factor of the ghost who was not scary at all. Sorry, but a girl covered in mud with a ridiculous receding hairline does not work on any level, and was not the way to go, which sucks because there is a moment in the film where she did look creepy as hell, but could they not afford to make her look that way the whole film or did they seriously believe the mud looked creepier? You are led to believe that the main girl, Stella (played by the scream queen Kris Aquino), is being haunted by her dead husband, Danillo, when in actuality it is her current husband's ex-girlfriend who is the ghost. This is not a shock in any regard because the film doesn't even try to give you a reason to believe it's Danillo other than Stella's dreams and some bull from the housekeeper. In fact, the opposite happens because we are given no resolution on what became of the girlfriend (hint 1), the new husband, Anton, had ample reason to kill the girlfriend (hint 2), which he did, the ghost's profile is deliberately masked to make it ambiguous if it's male or female (major fucking hint 3), they idiotically choose to include the plot aspect that Danillo died under no mysterious circumstance (hint 4) when they could have played this up! With these four factors presented so early in the film they already ruined what could have been an awesome reveal; this is not to say there aren't even more clues as the film progresses but these stand out so blatantly early on. There were also many wasted scares and senseless throwaway ideas like this creepy cabinet and an old toy that seem to have no relevance by the end. Oh and big shock the film ends on a senseless zinger! My last gripe is what the hell was with the shoddy film quality or did I get some defective copy? If I didn't know the film was recent I would have sworn it was made in the '90s or earlier. On the other hand, the acting was good, the scares presented could have been great if the ghost looked more frightening, there were some interesting ideas, and the music was nice and ominous. This film could have been so much greater it's really quite sad. I would say give this one a view simply for the sake that we don't get enough decent Filipino horror movies, but I would have preferred Ms. Aquino get cracking on a "Sukob" sequel (even if her character is dead) or something better. I mean, we can get 14 "Shake, Rattle and Roll"s but can't even get a "Feng Shui" 2?! You're killing me Philippines!

Notable Moment: When the ghost of Lorna appears by Anton at the bar and actually looks pretty scary as she's screaming.

Final Rating: 5/10