There are bad horror movies, and then there are horror movies that make you wonder if your television has personally offended God. Aswang (also called The Unearthing for the three people who cared enough to remember) is the kind of low-budget, pseudo-artsy exploitation film that Sundance programmers must have slipped in as a dare. This isn’t so much a movie as it is a series of unpleasant images stitched together with duct tape, fake blood, and the faint smell of mushroom soup.
Based on Philippine folklore, the Aswang is a terrifying vampiric creature that feeds on unborn children with a long, grotesque tongue. A myth with this much potential could’ve birthed an unforgettable, bone-chilling film. Instead, co-directors Wrye Martin and Barry Poltermann give us what looks like a community theater haunted house with better snacks.
The Premise: Rent-a-Womb, Rent-a-Disaster
The plot follows Katrina, a pregnant young woman who agrees to act as a surrogate for the wealthy and disturbingly named Peter Null. She’s brought to his creepy Wisconsin estate to pose as his wife so the family matriarch doesn’t get suspicious about the inheritance. But here’s the twist: the Null family aren’t just WASPs with property disputes—they’re WASPs with demonic tongues who want to slurp Katrina’s unborn fetus like it’s a Capri Sun.
That’s right. The film builds its entire terror engine on the concept of a giant, retractable, fetus-sucking tongue. Even H.R. Giger would’ve looked at this design and said, “Guys, tone it down.”
The Budget: $50 a Day and a Dream
You can feel the poverty dripping off every frame of this thing. The actors were paid $50 a day, which is slightly less than what Taco Bell offers for employee orientation. The directors seem to have blown the entire effects budget on one mechanical tongue, which looks like it was purchased at a Halloween outlet five minutes before closing.
Reverse-motion camerawork is trotted out repeatedly, giving the movie the aesthetic of an early Nine Inch Nails music video, except without the talent, vision, or, you know, Trent Reznor.
The Cast: Milwaukee Theater Goes to Hell
The filmmakers recruited actors from Milwaukee’s Theatre X, which might sound impressive until you realize most of them had never been in front of a camera before. Their performances range from “awkward high school play” to “I only came here because my roommate said there’d be free beer.”
Norman Moses plays Peter Null with the subtle menace of a guy who might steal your casserole dish and never return it. Flora Coker as Olive Null hobbles around like she’s auditioning for a dinner theater production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. And poor Tina Ona Paukstelis as Katrina looks constantly on the verge of calling her agent to demand hazard pay—or a working exit sign.
Then there’s Mildred Nierras as Cupid the maid, who, despite being the only character with actual ties to the myth, spends the film alternating between ominous exposition and looking like she’d rather be literally anywhere else.
The Gore: Fetuses, Fungus, and Funk
Horror fans, brace yourself. The gore here is both over the top and underwhelming, like a Gallagher routine if instead of smashing watermelons he smashed reproductive rights. We’re treated to blood squibs, slimy cocoons, and enough placenta imagery to make even David Cronenberg take a shower.
And then there’s Dr. Harper, the eccentric mushroom forager who stumbles onto the estate. Yes, mushrooms. Because what Aswang needed was comic relief in the form of a lunatic botanist who spends his time digging up fetal corpses and muttering about fungus. He’s meant to be quirky. He comes off like he wandered in from a different, equally bad movie about shrooms.
The Pacing: A Study in Confusion
The film can’t decide if it wants to be slow-burn gothic horror or an exploitation splatterfest. The first half drags like your uncle’s slide show from a camping trip, while the second half suddenly erupts in axe fights, tongue lashings, and dismemberments like a frat party at a prosthetics factory.
Critic Emanuel Levy famously said the film was “more gruesome and gross than really frightening.” He’s wrong—it’s not frightening, but it’s not gruesome enough to justify itself either. Aswang is like ordering spicy food and getting mild salsa with a hair in it.
The Ending: A Cop-Out Wrapped in Goo
Eventually Katrina realizes the Null family wants her unborn child. Peter Null, now fully tongue-happy, bashes her over the head with an axe. She cuts off her own hand to escape—because apparently fleeing while nine months pregnant wasn’t hard enough. Cupid, the maid, intervenes, and somehow the child is born, survives, and five years later is frolicking around with Cupid as though none of the preceding nightmare fuel ever happened.
The implication is that the cursed child inherits the Null fortune. Which is fitting, because anyone who watched this film deserves to inherit trauma.
The Reception: Sundance, Because Why Not
Believe it or not, Aswang was screened at Sundance in 1994. Yes, Robert Redford’s cinematic temple of indie prestige once showcased a movie about a fetus-slurping vampire with a bionic tongue. Some audience members walked out, which isn’t surprising—it’s amazing anyone stayed past the 20-minute mark.
Mixed reactions ranged from “too slow” to “disappointing ending.” That’s like saying the Titanic had “water damage.”
The Legacy: Forgotten, and Rightly So
Aswang faded into obscurity after its brief Sundance notoriety, living on mostly as trivia for horror nerds who enjoy finding the weirdest films ever made. It didn’t launch any careers, didn’t scare anyone, and didn’t even succeed as exploitation. It’s a cinematic stillbirth: messy, tragic, and best left unmentioned.
Final Thoughts: Abort Mission
At its core, Aswang wastes a rich and terrifying piece of folklore by smothering it under amateur performances, bargain-bin effects, and a script that treats women’s bodies like props at a butcher shop. It thinks it’s clever and artsy, but it’s really just Days of Our Lives with more goo and fewer coherent sentences.
If you’re morbidly curious, you could track it down and watch it as a midnight oddity. Otherwise, do yourself a favor: if you want actual Filipino horror about the aswang, check out Aswang (2011) from the Philippines, or even just Google “Philippine vampire folklore.” Both are scarier, shorter, and won’t make you want to bathe in hand sanitizer afterward.
