Rotterdam 2025 Review: LILIM Makes You Look Under The Bed

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has a healthy relationship with Asian genre cinema. In the past it was basically the go-to place for fans to check it out, and the (in)famous "Rotterdämmerung" part of the festival provided anime, horror and fantasy. Back in 2009 it even dedicated an entire section of the program to Asian hungry ghosts! Nowadays, a lot of this content has moved to other Dutch festivals like CinemAsia, Camera Japan, BUT Breda and the Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam, but you still get the occasional nugget at the IFFR. Or should I say: offering? This year the festival hosted the world première of the Philippine horror Lilim by Mikhail Red, and much fun was had by all. Well... all? After the first couple of scares there were a few walkouts, and that's the kind of film this is. Lilim doesn't pull any of its punches.

In the film we follow Issa, a young woman who has just murdered her abusive father and, in panic, flees her home with her kid brother Tomas. Following her late mother's advice she runs to a secluded orphanage somewhere in the hills and jungles, hoping the nuns there will hide them from the police. The orphanage welcomes the two siblings and provides them with the shelter they want. But Issa soon finds out that this is a place where things do go bump in the night. Weird scrapes and other noises can be heard in the dark, but what's even scarier: when she secretly explores the building at night, she discovers the nuns are hiding all sorts of secrets. Also, it seems something else is lurking around in the dark. Something far, far older than the nuns...

That the orphanage isn't exactly a safe place is no spoiler: already during the opening credits we see severed limbs tumbling through its hallways, while the walls are covered with the creepiest-looking art imaginable. It also alerts the audience where director Red puts his boundaries: where he bloody well wants them. The film takes place in the early eighties, when many people disappeared under the dictatorship of Marcos. As Mikhail Red explained during the Q&A after the world première, mangled corpses did often get found in the jungles, and the authorities were only all too happy spreading rumors of demonic cults being the culprit for those. Together with his brother Nicolas Red, he wrote a "But what if...?" story in this setting. Supernatural horror has always been a mechanism for coping with more down-to-Earth fears, and Lilim tackles subjects like extremism and power abuse.

For those expecting some deep, "elevated" horror though, Lilim is not it. It is a pretty basic shock-fest and its jumpscares will be be expected by experienced horror viewers (indeed, they are sometimes a bit too predictable). But as shockers go it's a very, very solid one, looking polished. Director Mikhail Red said he had a modest budget but that's not apparent at all, as the audience gets treated to a copious amount of make-up effects, prosthetics, blood, stunts and gunplay. Lead actress Heaven Peralejo presents Issa as a likable main character, one who isn't afraid to become a plucky heroine when the script calls for it. And the location it all happens in looks fabulously creepy, courtesy of the camerawork by Mikhail's father Raymond Red.

Lilim could just as well have premièred at the Imagine Film Festival or BUT Breda, and that is meant as a compliment. For it's a mean, lean crowdpleaser of a genre film. And I had a lot of fun with it.