'7 Days of Hell' review — When wrongs fester

THERE'S A SHORT PERIOD of time — about a week or so — every October, where, as young kids, we'd hop on paint-chipped roofs of jeepneys to trade scary stories with our friends, each one convinced that their parents know someone who had encountered an 'aswang.' Someone in the circle would then claim that their relative in the province has actually warded off an actual 'engkanto,' a powerful supernatural being that lives high up in the mountains. Someone else would try to one-up that and say, in full confidence, that their family knows an 'albularyo,' and that they've seen a case of 'kulam' firsthand, and that it's horrifying, seeing someone's full wrath manifest in gruesome ways.

Of course, it's all children chatter — our pre-Reddit, analog means of sharing stories the kids would now call creepypasta. But after-midnight 'undas' specials would exacerbate the dread that comes with exchanging these folk tales. We'd learn about supposedly real stories of 'mambabarang,' and it would bring tremors down our spines, seeing all sorts of grotesqueries come out of every orifice outside a human's body. It was, as a young boy, my first nugget of wisdom from horror: if you play foolish games, you get foolish rewards.

Erik Matti's 7 Days of Hell reminds me of those after-midnight specials. It's the kind of horror story you'd tell friends, a fine fodder for an audience comprised of starved-for-thrill kids: The 60-minute featurette follows a conscientious lady cop named Lourdes (played by Dolly De Leon) whose son, Eugene (Rosh Barman), becomes the unfortunate victim of 'barang,' a type of sorcery that afflicts harm on people by way of insects, arthropods, and all sorts of creepy-crawlies bursting outside of their body. It's a gross and grueling way to go out, and you'd have to inflict deep-seated pain to succumb to such an excruciating curse.

Apart from the typical evil-begets-evil morality fable, there's potential ACAB messaging here (though left largely unexplored) that screenwriter Michiko Yamamoto frames within the context of 'barang' as a fatal curse borne from seething anger. Yamamoto writes Lourdes as a righteous officer who vehemently upholds the law, even if it spells dislike among her colleagues. But when her son's safety is threatened due to the fact that he might have wronged somebody, we see her swiftly reverse positions and devolves, regretfully, into every other cop in the story.

The horror in 7 Days of Hell reads a lot more grown-up than the cheap thrills of Magandang Gabi Bayan specials I've watched as a kid, but I get the same giddy feeling of wanting to share it with people. This episode — a single entry in a sophomore season of an Asian folk horror anthology on HBO Max — didn't get much conversation the first time it streamed in 2021. But I do think it's worth seeing, especially during this time of year, when All Hallow's Eve is right around the corner, and the cold, crisp air gets you in the mood for a truly Filipino scary story.

7 Days of Hell

dir. Erik Matti | 2025 | Horror | 3.5

A righteous policewoman who believes in justice finds herself in a difficult position when her son becomes a victim of black magic.

Watch on HBO Max