Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.'s Poon (Banana Entertainment, C-Frame Production, 2025) is an exceptional horror film, but not in the way most would assume. Its general horror content may have been recycled from previous movies and its inner intelligence and coherence may no longer awe discerning horror fans that have followed recent Filipino movie trends. Nevertheless, where Poon truly impresses is in its setting-construction, in the unhurried building of atmosphere, in the attention to detail and characterization, and of course, its top-notch acting. Alix delivers a formally confident story within a detailed family dynamic and thoughtfully conceived visual metaphors to reflect them. The horror erupts from his characters, their relationships and behavior toward one another, as opposed to some random external force exacting its influence on the family. Their broken feelings lay the groundwork for something even more terrifying, all of it pouring from raw emotions, captured by the impressive cast. In the first scene, the family is struck by a tragedy. Peping (Ronaldo Valdez) a man whose domineering presence has tormented his wife, the distraught Berta (Gina Pareno) for some time. Sol (Jaclyn Jose) is suffused with torment of the most lived-in kind. Ria's (Janice de Belen) own relationship with her husband, Daniel, may have troubles, too (weighty ones, given that he’s played by the ever-somber Allen Dizon). Ria's eldest child, Carlo (Will Ashley), the disaffected teenage son, whose younger sister, Faye (Althea Ablan) with the dead stare of a statue, begins to experience visual manifestations. The house becomes an ominous focal point for their despair. As Ria and Mae’s (Ara Mina) tensions with their sister Adele (Lotlot de Leon) grow more extreme (she suffers from shocking nightmares), Faye’s tendency to sleepwalk adds another unpredictable variable to the growing impression of a hidden force overseeing their lives. And then it happens—a disturbing accident sets the horror into motion. Alix plays well in this sandbox, slowly pulling his cords tighter and tighter until the tension threatens to snap everyone in two. But the more we see, the more we become aware of something sinister in the air. Jerry B. Gracio's screenplay masterfully keeps us off balance, preventing us from knowing if we’re seeing something real. Part of what makes Poon so unsettling is its stubborn refusal to reveal what subgenre it's playing in. Is it a psychological horror? A standard haunted house? A possession thriller? Something else? As soon as you think you’ve got a handle on what this movie is and what it’s trying to accomplish, it suddenly switches gears and begins playing in an entirely different milieu. This allows Alix to mix and match tropes to fit his ultimate aim, and while we might not always be shocked by what comes next, we’re often surprised by why it happens.
A familiar blend of horror tropes is expertly employed by Alix without the usual gimmickry: the eerie appearance of a figure from a distance and the room with a disturbing secret. Strange things start happening to the family, particularly surrounding Sol's daughter. With her husband now gone, Berta delivers an outpouring of her family’s troubling history with tragedy and inexplicable death—a history she has perhaps never verbalized. And just when we think we understand the film’s horror rules, the rules change and it develops into something far more disturbing than we could have imagined. Poon isn't non-stop ghost action. It's more like a psychological thriller established, at first, as a family drama–but one that carefully builds the tension and anxiety to unbearable levels until something completely terrifying happens on the screen. Nevertheless, the film’s purpose, built in gradual pieces throughout, leads to disturbing sights and revelations, the unflinching and uncanny sort. Alix demonstrates with this astoundingly confident film that he’s more capable of orchestrating emotion, the fantastical and the appalling in a prolonged mood of uncertainty—all leading to a chilling grand design. The unbalanced approach to storytelling is perfectly matched by Alix’s cast, who seem to all implicitly trust their leader and are willing to follow him down his terrifying rabbit hole. Ablan impressively manages to be deeply sympathetic and fundamentally unsettling at the same time, De Leon delivers an intense, phenomenally complex performance. It’s Jose’s film though, drawing on such a well of emotions, she’s stressful to look at even in static imagery. And yet, as in most of her performances, there’s a resilience, in that tough pragmatic gaze. Sol is damned if she’s going to be a victim. Poon is an assault on your emotional response. And that’s where the film really shines–its ability to create emotional turbulence and how strange it is to associate those feelings alongside traditional horror-given emotion; fear. Poon is also a film that examines how a father’s past can haunt a family after his death, proving that the sins of our parents have lasting effects on our own psyches. The pain and the demons in Poon aren’t only literal; they’re the same ghosts that torture families struggling with grief. The realism, the death and the pain of Poon are nearly impossible to separate.
Direction: Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.
Screenplay: Jerry B. Gracio
Director of Photography: TM Malones
Editors: Xila Ofloda, Mark Llona
Music: Eigen Ignacio
Production Design: Jay Custodio
Sound Design: Immanuel Verona, Fatima Nerikka Salim
