U-Turn

When I stumbled upon this 2020 Filipino horror movie on Netflix, I had never heard about it, and given my fascination with both horror movies and Asian cinema, then of course I opted to give director Roderick Cabrido's movie a fair chance.

While I did manage to sit through the 98 minutes that the movie ran for, I have to say that I was only mildly entertained by the narrative. Writer Cenon Palomares didn't exactly deliver a particularly riveting narrative or script for director Roderick Cabrido to bring to the screen. It was, in fact, a rather boring story that actually made very little sense.

And even the character gallery in the movie was somewhat boring as well, and that didn't exactly help to lift up an otherwise stale and bland storyline and script.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough. I wasn't familiar with the cast, aside from Martin Del Rosario.

For a scary movie then "U-Turn" wasn't particuarly effective, as there was nothing scary in it. That, or perhaps I am just jaded from about 40 years of watching horror movies.

I have to say that there simply is zero replay value to "U-Turn", provided you get through it the first time around, that is.

My rating of "U-Turn" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

Garbage. Can even see how different the double is from the lead character. Don't waste your time here pls.

U-Turn is a B-movie of the thriller/ suspense/ horror genre.

Decent acting with, what seems to be basically rudderless direction.

Both my wife and myself very rarely watch anything Asian; since their culture is so hard to relate to; being so vastly different from that of the West.

Inconsistent English dubbing, along with inconsistent English closed-captioning. Additionally, it's hard to both take in the scenes and read the CC because of the poor pacing.

Decent special effects.

Hollywood cliché #194: there will be an unruly crowd at a crime scene minutes after the police first arrive.

A crime scene tape perimeter is to ignored.

It is perfectly acceptable to steal from the dead because, like, what are they going to do about it?

In a Western country Donna would have been arrested. Several times.

Apparently this is a remake of a Kannada movie. So I was skimming through the original kannada movie to find anything that was better, but I'm thoroughly impressed by the filipino remake in that there are almost no resemblance to each film. It's a inspiration for sure which the Filipino movie actually says so.

The movie itself I found it engaging for the most part if you watch it as a movie and not become too logical. The 3rd Act could've been better. Slight pacing issues in parts otherwise a one time watch for curious cats like me who like to explore world cinema. My first Filipino film done! ✅

As a film released in 2020, I expected that Filipino horror film creators to take note of the multiple criticisms Philippine horror has accrued over the previous decade. However sadly, this film let me down. On top of the overuse of jump scares, I also noticed that the plot heavily relies on the main character's stupidity and lack of common sense. Because of this, instead of empathizing with the character, I am led to questioning their judgment, and laughing at their choice of actions (Not a good sign of an immersive experience). Hope that this is not the best that Philippine Horror has to offer.