{"id":602900,"date":"2023-01-30T13:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T19:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/in-my-mothers-skin-review-folk-horror-feast-evokes-pans-labyrinth-in-the-best-of-ways\/"},"modified":"2023-01-30T13:01:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T19:01:00","slug":"in-my-mothers-skin-review-folk-horror-feast-evokes-pans-labyrinth-in-the-best-of-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/in-my-mothers-skin-review-folk-horror-feast-evokes-pans-labyrinth-in-the-best-of-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018In My Mother\u2019s Skin\u2018 Review: Folk-Horror Feast Evokes \u2018Pan\u2019s Labyrinth\u2019 in the Best of Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tGory, glittery and irresistibly bleak, In My Mother\u2019s Skin <\/em>represents a stylish, ripe contribution to the folk-horror canon. Not unlike his acclaimed debut, Ma<\/em> (2018), Manila-based writer-director Kenneth Dagatan\u2019s second feature revolves around a young person who makes a bargain with a malevolent insectoid forest spirit to help her family \u2014 with disastrous consequences.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis time round, Dagatan and his team have added a period frame by setting the story on a rural estate in the Philippines during the final days of World War II, just before the defeat of the occupying Japanese forces. Inevitably, that fascism subtext coupled with the creepy-ancient-being stuff strongly brings Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Pan\u2019s Labyrinth <\/em>to mind, at least to a Western viewer\u2019s eyes. But if you\u2019re going to steal, steal from the best. And there\u2019s plenty that\u2019s fresh, frisky and original here. It\u2019s no surprise the global rights were snapped up by Amazon Prime before the film premiered in Sundance\u2019s Midnight section.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tIn My Mother’s Skin\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

The Bottom Line<\/span>
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\tGood enough to eat.
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Venue:<\/strong> Sundance Film Festival<\/a> (Midnight)
Cast:<\/strong> Felicity Kyle Napuli, Beauty Gonzalez, James Mavie Estrella, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Angeli Bayani, Arnold Reyes, Ronnie Lazaro
Director-screenwriter:<\/strong> Kenneth Dagatan
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 36 minutes \t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n\tShot with a small cast mostly in one location, like so many features in the time of COVID, the film begins with a sense of panicky isolation surrounded by a threatening darkness, and never really lets up. After an extremely gory, if low-lit, pre-title sequence pans over blood-soaked corpses being feasted on by a possessed soldier, who then vomits a live bird, the action cuts to a large mansion where a once-wealthy family has been trying to survive the war. Almost the first line of dialogue is a question from adolescent girl Tala (Felicity Kyle Napuli, outstanding): She asks her little brother, Bayani (James Mavie Estrella, also great), if he\u2019s heard about Japanese soldiers in Manila throwing live babies in the air and then skewering them with bayonets for fun, which definitely sets a tone.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation goes on while a man named Antonio (Ronnie Lazaro) drives up with some Japanese soldiers, offering enough food for a feast, quite a temptation in these times of famine. It turns out the Japanese and Antonio want to know where the kids\u2019 father, Romualdo (Arnold Reyes), has hidden some gold the Japanese believe belongs to them. He insists he knows nothing of this gold, but soon after he goes away, claiming to have business to attend to that will protect the family. He leaves his sickly wife, Ligaya (Beauty Gonzalez), and the two children in the care of the family\u2019s last remaining servant, Amor (Angeli Bayani).<\/p>\n

\n\tLigaya appears to have one of those wasting, unnamed, cinematic diseases that causes racking coughs and general fecklessness, requiring her to stay in bed most of the time. With nothing much left to eat but sweet potatoes, the children take their father\u2019s gun beyond the gate and into the forest they\u2019ve always been forbidden from entering, hoping to catch something to eat. Before you can say Hansel and Gretel, they become separated and Tala finds a hut in the woods with creepy stained glass windows, zillions of black, june-bug-like insects, and a piece of candy in a bright red wrapper, sitting on a table like an offering.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course she eats it, and of course that turns out to be her first mistake. A smiling fairy (Jasmine Curtis-Smith) appears, dressed in a massive gown and wearing a gold lam\u00e9 and pearl-encrusted headdress that makes her look like a cross between a Miss Universe contestant and a Virgin Mary statue. (There are frequent cutaways throughout to an actual Virgin Mary statue in Tala\u2019s home, in case you missed the visual allusion.) The fairy offers to reward Tala\u2019s \u201cinnocence\u201d by giving her one of her insect minions, explaining that when applied internally to Ligaya, it will cure her disease.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rest of the film is one long demonstration of how there\u2019s always a catch. Wise children should take away the lesson that one must never trust fairies of any description or anyone offering free sweets, food or disease-curing insects. That said, most children would be hugely traumatized by seeing this film, in which Tala\u2019s mother eventually turns murderous, mad and chameleon-tongued while the bodies pile up one by one. Indeed, one hopes steps were taken to protect the child actors themselves from the disturbing imagery throughout.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough the relentless flesh-munching and insectoid clicking sounds become a little repetitive by the time we reach the third act, Dagatan still has a few tricks up his sleeve to provide surprises, including a doozy involving Amor, the faithful servant. DP Russell Morton\u2019s inky cinematography remains legible enough for the film to play well on small screens, a likely fate given the sale to Amazon, while the creations by production and costume designers Benjamin Padero and Carlo Tabije punctuate the gloom with pops of garish color.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\tFull credits<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tVenue: Sundance Film Festival (Midnight)
Cast: Felicity Kyle Napuli, Beauty Gonzalez, James Mavie Estrella, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Angeli Bayani, Arnold Reyes, Ronnie Lazaro
Distributor: Amazon Studios
Production companies: Amazon Studios, Epicmedia, Zhao Wei Films, Volos Films, Clover Films
Director-screenwriter: Kenneth Dagatan
Producers: Bradley Liew, Huang Junxiang, Bianca Balbuena, Stefano Centini
Executive producers: Eric Khoo, Lim Teck, Paulyn Chua
Director of photography: Russell Morton
Production designers: Benjamin Padero, Carlo Tabije
Costume designer: Carlo Tabije
Editor: Kao Ming-Cheng
Sound designers: Eddie Huang, Chen Yi Ling
Music: Sing Wu
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 36 minutes \t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Read More<\/a>
\n Leslie Felperin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gory, glittery and irresistibly bleak, In My Mother\u2019s Skin represents a stylish, ripe contribution to the folk-horror canon. Not unlike his acclaimed debut, Ma (2018), Manila-based writer-director Kenneth Dagatan\u2019s second feature revolves around a young person who makes a bargain with a malevolent insectoid forest spirit to help her family \u2014 with disastrous consequences. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":602901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37249,534,27979],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-602900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-in","8":"category-financial","9":"category-mothers"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}