NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Mondo Macabro Blu-ray (October 2026): Mondo Macabro have transferred Wrye Martin + Barry Poltermann's Aswang to Blu-ray. Jim Zabilla’s 16mm cinematography gives the film the grainy, overcast texture of a Midwestern autumn. Bare trees, gray skies and dim, wood-paneled interiors make the Null estate feel cut off from the world well before the bloodletting starts. Night scenes rely on available light and practical sources, and the gore is shot head-on with very few cutaways. Barry Poltermann’s own editing keeps the 82-minute running time tight once events start moving. Mondo Macabro’s Blu-ray of Aswang comes from a new 4K restoration of the original 16mm negative. It is presented in the film’s native 1.33:1 frame, pillarboxed within 1080P. The 82-minute feature sits on a dual-layered disc with a very high bitrate that holds remarkably steady from start to finish. That room pays off, because this is a grainy 16mm source and the heavy, organic texture is left intact and handled cleanly by the encode. Close-ups are especially impressive: you can see the creases and pores in Flora Coker’s face as Olive, Katrina’s freckles, the bark on the trees and the leaf litter on the forest floor. Colors look true to a Wisconsin autumn, with yellow foliage, dry golden grasses and natural skin tones. Brighter accents, like Katrina’s magenta turtleneck, Cupid’s red lipstick and Dr. Harper’s red tie, pop without bleeding. The many night and dimly lit interior scenes keep deep, solid black levels with very respectable shadow detail. The cool blue cast of some night sequences looks like an intentional photographic choice. The source has been cleaned very well and shows only the odd tiny speck. This is an authentic, film-like HD presentation of a low-budget regional production, and it is hard to imagine Aswang looking much better than it does here.

NOTE: We have added 48 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Mondo Macabro offer two lossless DTS-HD Master tracks, a newer 5.1 surround mix and a 2.0 stereo track, both at 16-bit. The 5.1 mainly spreads Ken Brahmstedt’s synth score and the ambient effects (wind through the trees, creaks in the old house) into the surrounds. The 2.0 is the more direct and arguably more faithful option. Either way, the gorier moments and the squelch of the aswang’s proboscis carry plenty of impact. Dialogue is clean and clear, and the uncompressed transfer brings out the score’s ominous stingers. Mondo Macabro offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

Mondo Macabro has assembled a strong package on their Blu-ray. There are two audio commentaries. The first features co-directors Wrye Martin and Barry Poltermann, moderated by Mondo Macabro’s Pete Tombs, who keeps the conversation focused on the film’s origins, the tiny budget and the shoot around Milwaukee. The second brings together executive producer David Dahlman and actors Norman Moses and Tina Ona Paukstelis for a cast’s-eye view of the production. The documentary Different Than Hollywood: Making of Aswang runs almost 1/2 hour and covers the film from its folklore origins through the Sundance midnight screening and the Unearthing recut. The “Lost Scene Narration” runs almost 7 minutes and describes the original script’s opening, set in the Philippines thirty years before the main action. That scene featured a much younger Dr. Harper and helped explain why he returns to the Null estate three decades later. There are two audition tapes, one for Norman Moses and one for John Garekis, each about 3 minutes. The Nullberry Cooler runs about 2 1/2 minutes. Three trailers round out the disc: the original fundraising trailer, the theatrical trailer and the trailer for The Unearthing. The copy reviewed here has no booklet. Mondo Macabro’s limited Red Case edition, restricted to 1,200 numbered copies, adds a reversible sleeve and a full-color booklet with new writing on the film by Chris Hallock.

Aswang lets the audience know early that something is very wrong with the Nulls. The suspense comes less from mystery than from waiting for the inevitable. About half an hour in, the aswang’s proboscis makes its first visit. From there the film becomes a steadily escalating run of grotesque, darkly comic set-pieces, with chainsaws, severed limbs and a sticky climax in the woods. The tongue effect sits right on the line between repulsive and absurd, and that feels deliberate. Martin and Poltermann are clearly working in the tradition of The Evil Dead and Re-Animator. Gore is the attraction, and the filmmakers know it is funny as well as gross. The amateur rough edges are visible in some stiff line readings and broad music cues. Even so, the film creates a real feeling of claustrophobia in that big, cold house. Its core idea is a pregnant woman held captive by a family who see her as a vessel. That idea comes from genuine folklore and is still upsetting under the camp. Few American horror films of the period drew on Philippine mythology at all, and that alone makes Aswang stand out. The film is a true lost oddity of ’90s American independent horror. Wrye Martin and Barry Poltermann shot it on 16mm around Milwaukee for about $70,000, and it took a genuine Philippine folk legend about a vampire that feeds on the unborn to a Wisconsin country estate. Tina Ona Paukstelis (October Moon 2: November Son, 5 Dark Souls) plays the pregnant Katrina, who is drawn into the Null family’s sham marriage. Flora Coker (Small Town Wisconsin), John Kishline (Public Enemies) and Violent Femmes drummer Victor DeLorenzo fill out a memorably odd regional cast. The film announces early that something is wrong with the Nulls, then builds into a run of grotesque, with darkly comic gore set-pieces. Its amateur edges are part of the charm, and the central idea of a young woman held captive as a vessel is still upsetting beneath the camp. Mondo Macabro’s Blu-ray offers a superb new 4K restoration from the original negative with very high bitrate, beautifully resolved grain, lossless 5.1 and 2.0 audio, two commentaries, a making-of documentary and a fascinating look at the lost Philippine prologue. This is very easy to recommend to fans of offbeat cult horror. It is the definitive presentation of a film that had nearly disappeared, and it comes recommended!

Gary Tooze