by Lei Landicho

As an official entry to the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), Nilalang claims that it is offering something new to the table. It declares that it can even pass international standards of filmmaking (relatively, though, to the MMFF trends from previous years). In all fairness, Nilalang truly knows how to please a crowd. It has blood, sex, and Maria Ozawa. The problem however is, when you strip it off of its appealing veneer, we see a half-baked, run-of-the-mill paranormal action film that admires itself as something more than it actually is. A work of art that gives too much labor on one of its elements while overlooking the others, then regards itself as excellent, is arrogant to say the least.

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