Aswang – a freaky vampire creature is coming for her baby!

Aswang sure is a lost indie horror film of the 90s. A shame, because it’s more my type of horror than most movies that came out during that decade. It has such a great “video store gem” look and feel to it.

An Aswang is an actual Filipino vampire legend that is pretty much better than any vampire legend ever. This creature is believed to be a devourer of fetuses that sucks the dang baby right out of the mother’s womb!

So the movie Aswang is about a desperate young pregnant woman. PERFECT. She agrees to an odd arranged marriage to a rich dude. His mother is dying, and apparently she wants to see him married before she goes.

So the young woman moves into the family’s big house in the middle of nowhere with her new husband…and his sick mother…and the weird maid…and the supposedly “touched” sister who lives out back in a separate house but is never seen.

Aswang is dark, eerie, freaky, and perfectly paced with no filler thanks to the hour and twenty minute run time. The story stays focused on the isolated location, the helplessness of the young pregnant woman, and the bizarre family with a horrifying secret. Only a few outsiders come around, and it never ends well for them.

There’s gore. There are creepy woods. There are little dead things in cocoons. There’s something traveling through the trees in good old Evil Dead style. There’s a chainsaw chase. And there’s this fricking tongue thing that slithers around the young pregnant woman’s room at night. And that’s just for starters.

There are plenty of “ick” moments in Aswang thanks to the whole womb-sucking creature angle. It all comes to a crazy climax, with the husband totally stealing the show with a psycho performance and the young pregnant woman making an excellent final (aka: only) girl. I love discovering great horror I missed the first time around!

I won’t spoil the great reveal in the movie, but this is an incredible depiction of an Aswang. NIGHTMARE.