‘Kampon’ Netflix Movie Review - King Palisoc’s Horror Drama is Watchable

Before turning towards complete horror mayhem, King Palisoc's Kampon works effectively as a drama film. It focuses on Clark (Derek Ramsay) and Eileen (Beauty Gonzalez), a couple who cannot have kids because the husband is sterile. Many doctors have been consulted, and they all have arrived at the same conclusion. Ramsay and Gonzalez portray the desires of their characters forcibly. Notice the uncomfortable quietness on their face when a couple at the beginning asks them about their plans. Or observe the smile on Eileen's face when a girl refers to her as "Mommy." That girl is Jade, and she is played by Erin Espiritu, who is also very good at being a "demon child." Kampon doesn't have any flaws when it comes to its actors.

Who is Jade, though? Why does she call Eileen her mother? According to the little girl, Clark is her father (her real mother "could not come back"). Clark immediately dismisses her words as rubbish. He is sterile, remember? But Eileen begins to doubt her husband. She also decides to keep Jade in the house instead of handing her to child services. This expectedly turns out to be a bad decision. Strangers in horror films should never be trusted. There is a scene in Kampon where, during a birthday party, the birthday girl screams, "I don't want animals and magicians! I want mermaids!" The girl's mother comes to Eileen and confesses that children can be a headache. What's Kampon if not a 91-minute-long proof that having kids isn't exactly a blessing? Society has just created an empty hype around babies, calling them cute angels who unite/fix families. "Bullshit," says Kampon to all that noise.

The performances give the horror a strong undercurrent of trust and its destruction. Jade plays with Eileen's emotions, so the scene where the latter sees the former floating in the air should have given rise to devastating sentiments. It's, however, turned into an underwhelming dream sequence. In Kampon, intense drama is sacrificed at the altar of serviceable scares. Some of them are nicely executed, like the one where Jade is seen on a ceiling like Spider-Man, while Clark's stalkers look at the CCTV camera in a creepy way. Some, like the one where characters say, "Mommy Leen, she isn't yours," fail to come across as a terrifying nightmare.

Kampon opens with a man taking a woman to a priest/exorcist, but it's never made clear how this woman got possessed in the first place. The details of this demon remained ambiguous for this viewer. Kampon had the potential to be something truly disturbing and memorable. There is meat in its psychological aspects. For now, however, it's simply watchable.

Final Score- [5.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times