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There's a cruelty to In My Mother's Skin that may seem off-putting at first, but one must reckon with the sheer scale of the violence already occurring before these characters are even introduced to us. The Japanese occupation of the Philippines was a particularly vicious period in the country's history; if Filipinos weren't fighting or hiding from their invaders, many of them were trying to maintain a precariously submissive, neutral existence, or they were being turned against each other due to the conflict of war trickling down between the social classes. All these things are implicit throughout Kenneth Dagatan's film, which doesn't try to reenact World War II but capture the total absence of hope during this period.

Dagatan's style of horror insists on a very slow pace, emphasizing every footstep leading to a horrifying reveal, and not just the main scare itself. This choice doesn't always work, especially as certain beats begin to repeat themselves, but the film's incredibly confident visual style fills every moment with an eerie paranoia. Gothic, shadowy interiors, nasty gore, and one opulently costumed fairy make everything perpetually unsettling—gradually forcing us to accept that these contradictions are just the reality of life under war.

Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, War

Actor: Angeli Bayani, Arnold Reyes, Beauty Gonzalez, Brian Sy, Felicity Kyle Napuli, James Mavie Estrella, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Noel Sto. Domingo, Ronnie Lazaro

Director: Kenneth Lim Dagatan

The tags raunchy and irreverent get thrown around on Netflix like I throw around the word fascinating. But make no mistake about it, this was disgusting right off the bat. There’s not a lot to the jokes, though, other than terrible accents and caricatures and small dick references. It feels like a reenactment of a mid standup comedy bit that went on too long. It's a fun bro movie that tells conservative Pinoy culture to suck it, but it’s a visual and narrative mess, and it has the balls to try and end on a meaningful note when it never attempted any semblance of it throughout.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Caira Lee, Donna Cariaga, Enrique Gil, Kenneth Won, Kumron Jivachat, Miguel Almendras, Mihk Vergara, Nikko Natividad, Pepe Herrera, Red Ollero, Sahatchai Chumrum, Sunshine Teodoro, Vern Kaye, Wipawee Charoenpura

Director: Victor Villanueva