A derivative catholic school haunting film with a Pinoy overlay, the melding of cultural influences allowing for some nicely reskinned jump scares and tropes but not much else. The filmmaker’s focus is in creating and maintaining an ominous atmosphere, aided by a genuinely creep inspiring setting and wielding every cross-cultural cliche possible in order to hold the audience’s attention through a somewhat boring mystery. While there are some interesting aspects to the presentation, the core story is unengaging and in overcompensation the movie front-loads a veritable battalion of jumpscares and ghost tricks throughout the first half. To be fair, many of these are very well executed, with a nice buildup, genuinely terrifying images, and great atmosphere throughout the entire film. The cinematography and technical filmmaking in this film is quite excellent, with efficient use of desaturation and oversaturation techniques to augment beautiful locations. Underneath the surface, the movie tries to make significant statements about the poor treatment of mental illness and contemporary bullying but none of it is subtle or significant. The last act is a sequence of predictable plot twists with an ‘action’ sequence that comes off more hilarious than anything else. Ultimately this is a beautiful looking film that, like the ghosts themselves, is a revenant echo of better films.
Eerie