Aswang

Oh my goodness. This weekend I saw the 1994 psycho/vampire horror flick Aswang.

[But first, some background: Lynda Barry's story "Aswang" from One Hundred Demons. It's even better live.]

So Orty finally found a copy of the movie after ten years. It turns out that not only was part of it filmed in Milwaukee (check out the classy Third Ward office in the first scene) and a Violent Femme plays the sheriff (so that's what happened to Victor Delorenzo), but Orty's family's butcher block plays a crucial role in a chopping scene. His sister's ex-boyfriend was a producer (I think) and his mom did the set catering. Everyone in Orty's family appears in the credits and thanks except Orty and his brother. What a rip. But oddly not atypical.

Favorite bits (Caution: spoilers. You were about to run out and rent it, right?)

• The gratuitious use of barbecue sauce splattering a pet show chicken. (No chickens were harmed...)


• When the petite Filipino maid is suddenly, amazingly buff (and hirsute) when she has to carry an old lady up some stairs.


• When the freaked-out libertarian leading man screams at his young bride, "You have proven untrustworthy!" after she kills his crazy sister with a garden hoe. (At this point, JM stopped watching, alleging that the screenwriters had stolen his ideas.)

The most hilarious bit has to be when the leading lady is chained to a wooden window frame in a run-down cottage. The actress is obviously holding the chain so it doesn't fall off her wrist. That, and she spends a good minute whacking the chain with a hatchet when a stiff tug would've broken the window frame. It's good they left that scene in, though, because it's Orty's butcher block's big moment.