Family Road Trip: Brought to You by the Department of Supernatural Tourism
Nothing says “bonding experience” like a road trip that ends in cannibalistic bloodshed and generational curses. The Strangers (2012), directed by Lawrence Fajardo, takes the classic Filipino family outing — the one where everyone fights in the car, the food gets cold, and someone inevitably forgets the directions — and cranks it up to eleven by adding shape-shifting monsters, ominous villagers, and a heavy side of moral rot.
It’s the Little Miss Sunshine of aswang movies, only instead of emotional healing, everyone ends up eating someone. Literally.
Released as part of the 38th Metro Manila Film Festival, The Strangers manages to be both stylish and deliciously twisted. It’s equal parts creature feature, domestic melodrama, and cautionary tale about why you should never, ever travel with your extended family.
Dysfunctional Family, Meet Dysfunctional Forest
Our doomed clan consists of twins Pat (Julia Montes) and Max (Enrique Gil), their simmering parents Roy (Johnny Revilla) and Evelyn (Cherry Pie Picache), their senile grandpa Lolo Pete (Jaime Fabregas), his caregiver Paloma (Janice de Belen), and a driver named Toning (Nico Antonio), whose main qualification appears to be “disposable.”
They’re en route to celebrate the twins’ eighteenth birthday — because nothing says coming of age like getting stranded in a demonic woodland that looks like it was designed by Guillermo del Toro after a bad breakup.
Tensions are already boiling before they even hit the forest: Roy is emotionally distant, Evelyn is passive-aggressive, and Grandpa Pete looks like he’s one blood-pressure spike away from spontaneous combustion. The twins bicker like every set of siblings forced to share a backseat for more than ten minutes.
Then, because karma apparently drives a tricycle, they run over an old woman. When they go to check on her body, it’s gone. At this point, most people would take that as a cue to leave — but this family keeps driving like they’re auditioning for Wrong Turn: The Visayan Edition.
The Hills Have Filipinos
Their van promptly breaks down, because of course it does. It’s a cinematic rule: if your family trip involves a forest, your vehicle will fail faster than your father’s patience.
Enter the mysterious village — that horror-movie staple where everyone’s too polite, too quiet, and too fond of candles. The locals, led by Kapitan Tasyo (Art Acuña), welcome the family with the same energy as someone reluctantly hosting a séance-themed potluck.
Strange warnings abound. An old woman mutters about demons, bloodlines, and curses — your standard party icebreakers. The family ignores her, because in horror films, common sense is always the first to die.
Soon, people start disappearing. Grandpa Pete is the first to go, presumably after realizing he left his meds back home. Toning, the driver, gets attacked by something with too many teeth and not enough empathy. Roy vanishes into the dark, leaving Evelyn to slowly unravel in a way that only Cherry Pie Picache can: beautifully, dramatically, and with an appetite for murder.
Romeo and Ghouliet
Amidst the chaos, Pat meets Dolfo (Enchong Dee), a brooding local who has “tragic backstory” written all over his forehead. He lives in a cave, he’s hunted by the villagers, and he says things like, “The forest remembers the blood it’s owed.” Red flag? Sure. But Pat, being a teenager in a horror movie, decides he’s just misunderstood.
Dolfo tells her about his past — his family was slaughtered by the Aswangs, the flesh-eating monsters of Filipino folklore. Now he hunts them in vengeance, the way some people hunt for validation on Facebook.
Pat, charmed by his tragic hero routine, tends his wounds and flirts like she’s not literally surrounded by potential demons. It’s a romance built on blood, danger, and poor life choices — so basically every teenage relationship ever.
The Twist That Bites
Just when you think The Strangers is a straightforward “humans vs. monsters” flick, Fajardo pulls the rug — and your jaw — out from under you.
It turns out the family we’ve been pitying this whole time aren’t innocent travelers at all. They’re the Aswangs.
That’s right: Mom, Dad, and the twins are flesh-eating supernatural predators. Lolo Pete’s death? A family power struggle. Roy and Max transforming into monsters? Just another Tuesday. Evelyn? Well, let’s just say Cherry Pie Picache finally gets to chew scenery — and several villagers.
The revelation lands like a punchline in a funeral: shocking, absurd, and disturbingly satisfying. What seemed like a horror story about survival suddenly becomes a twisted tale of predation, heritage, and denial.
It’s as if The Texas Chain Saw Massacre suddenly switched perspectives halfway through and asked you to sympathize with the Sawyers. And somehow… it works.
The Dinner Table That Redefined “Family Meal”
Once the truth is out, the film descends into gleeful chaos. Kapitan Tasyo and his men discover the family’s true nature and try to fight back — which goes about as well as you’d expect when your opponents can sprout fangs and tear out jugulars before dessert.
Roy dies heroically (or hungrily — it’s hard to tell), and Max retaliates by devouring Tasyo like a midnight snack. Evelyn, meanwhile, goes full Aswang mom mode, wiping out the village like it’s a buffet.
By the time the blood settles, the once-lovely town looks like a crime scene from MasterChef: Hell Edition.
Paloma, the caregiver, manages to escape — because even in horror movies, domestic helpers are the true survivors of Filipino society.
Family Values, But Make Them Carnivorous
What makes The Strangers fascinating isn’t just its gore (though there’s plenty of that) — it’s how it uses the Aswang myth as a metaphor for toxic legacy. The film isn’t just about monsters in the woods; it’s about the monsters we inherit, the family secrets we refuse to face, and the lengths we’ll go to hide our true nature.
Roy’s authoritarian parenting, Evelyn’s simmering resentment, and the twins’ identity crisis all feed into the horror. The Aswang curse becomes an allegory for generational trauma — passed down like a family heirloom nobody wanted but everyone pretends to cherish.
It’s Succession, but with more intestines.
A Filipino Gothic Buffet
Cinematically, Fajardo treats the rural setting like another character — lush, decaying, and brimming with menace. The camera lingers on the misty forests, the flickering lamplight, the dirt roads that seem to lead in circles. Every frame hums with unease, as though the land itself is watching, waiting.
The pacing walks that tricky line between slow-burn suspense and full-on absurdity. Just when the melodrama threatens to overtake the horror, someone gets eviscerated, and balance is restored.
The acting ensemble — from Julia Montes’ gradual transformation from ingénue to predator, to Janice de Belen’s understated terror — carries the film’s shifting tones with eerie grace. And Cherry Pie Picache? She devours the role. Literally and figuratively.
The Last Laugh (and Bite)
The ending, in true dark-comedy fashion, loops the story back to its beginning: a year later, the surviving twins prepare for another family trip, smiling like nothing ever happened. Because if there’s one thing scarier than monsters, it’s family denial.
It’s the perfect punchline — cynical, eerie, and just a little too close to home.
Final Thoughts: “The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together”
The Strangers is a rare beast — a Filipino horror film that blends social satire, folklore, and family drama without losing its sense of humor. It’s bloody, it’s bold, and it’s bizarrely funny in all the right ways.
It reminds you that no matter how far you drive, you can’t escape your roots — especially if your roots are buried in other people’s corpses.
Verdict: ★★★★☆
The Strangers is a family vacation gone deliciously wrong — a twisted, witty, and proudly Filipino monster movie that proves some secrets are best left unearthed… and uneaten.
