wingthwong Review of Evil Takes Root

Evil Takes Root (2020)

No midwestern town is this inbred with rage issues.

[6/10 · 26 January 2021]

Batibat. Piqued my interest. Based off of Filipino folklore. Yet very loosely based only that it uses nightmare like instances and trees and wooden houses. What started off as a good concept and possibly with the right backing turned out a good movie, turned out to be a half cocked plan. This movie basically portrays every small midwestern town as being a one biker bar, inbred catholic school, anger filled rage, witchcraft believing burg. And then, here comes a paranormal priest, all the way from California, to save the day. First, I have a hard time believing a surgeon, in this day and age, does home visits, has rage issues, hangs out at a local honlytonk biker bar, drives around in a Dually 4x4 Ram (male overcompensation), and acts more like a boxer (which the actor supposedly was at one time) than a doctor. The bar patrons just beat a priest because the priest talked to the doctor, like the bar patrons have some close tie to this doctor. Then, the mythology of this demon is not tied to the phony catholic religion. Just because the Spanish "catholicized" the Philippines, this mythology has no basis in catholicism, and they just don't relate. Also, the Batibat is traced to the tree that was cut down and put into a specific domicile. It then chokes the inhabitants in their sleep. And then let's throw in an Amish style community that the doctor helps out as if he is some Mr. Rogers. While the writers embellished a little, the story could have worked, but this mess crossed into druid style witchcraft, Amish community, catholic school with segregated male and female classes and depressed school girl Carrie like rage, an unbelievable massocist paranormal fake priest who had trysts, a totally unbelievable surgeon that tried to do it all like doctors in the 1800s yet wanted to beat the mess out of people, and a local biker bar. The story was there, the script, settings, and actors playing the adults weren't. The only good acting was by the girls in the henge style druid ritual. The sleepwalking trance like murders don't even fit right in the story. It could have been a 10 star, but the mess that was created went down to a 5. I can't say it was a 1 because it had merit. This could have been a good teen girl horror romcom like the twilight series, but that's where it ends. Watch at your own risk.