The movie was marketed as a horror movie, but after watching Espantaho I felt that rather than being a horror movie it felt like the movie was more of a family drama with a bit of horror. The issues within the family of Monet overshadowed the Espantaho, I was actually puzzled why the painting is taking the lives of people. The backstory was quite shallow although I felt that it tried to be as folkloric as Feng Shui, it wasn’t giving anything.
Noticeably some scenes from the movie lacked consistency and continuity, obviously there were scenes that were shot on a different date, but was edited together, you;ll notice it because the tone and reaction of the characters differs from the last scene, this might be minor mistakes but it does change the mood of the scene and the movie.
The use of flashback wasn’t utilized completely well to match the story, there was a scene where Chanda Romero and Janice De Belen are arguing inside a room and then the next scene they were already inside the car on their way to the house of Judy Ann.
Although Espantaho got a very promising storyline as it tries to mimic a more Filipino version of Feng Shui, the movie wasn’t able to again establish its story well, it wanted to do so many things but failed to deliver.
There were cringe worthy scenes like that of the ballroom dancing couple in the middle of Donna Carriaga’s scene, the backstory-less kids that wanted to play, the poor special effects used in the plagues, the low quality CGI;s for the pestilence.
Despite the Best Actress worthy performance of Judy Ann Santos in Espantaho, the movie felt flat and lacking in establishing its own identity as a horror flick.
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