Balangiga: Howling Wilderness

The film has received critical acclaim in the Philippines.

According to Oggs Cruz of Rappler.com, "Balangiga: Howling Wilderness navigates its seemingly simple narrative around the very relevant tenuous relations the Philippines has with America. The film has clear political implications and suggestions. Yet as soon as it ends with an ironic burst of animated hues and figures, it graduates from being a mere document on the sufferings and indignity of a nation under a colonial power's regime."[5]

Prof. Joel David notes in his review, "Khavn deploys cinematic tricks (stop-motion animation, disorienting lenses, startling drone footage, etc.) as well as basic special effects that serve to emblematize the childhood world of Kulas. His persistent (though inevitably sordid) humor, tenderhearted embrace of Otherness, and contempt for everything represented by modern existence and its enforcement via wholesale genocidal-if-necessary violence – these make of "Balangiga" all that Filipinos can claim so far as their retribution for the incredible injustice visited on the country's distant central island over a century ago."[6]

Arnorld Alamon of Sunstar reviewed the film positively and writes, "the film Balangiga: Howling Wilderness is a cinematic experience that is difficult to put in words and is better felt than described. [...] The end is not to cease but to destroy, or as the film puts succinctly – WAZAK!"[7]

However, according to Businessworld the film was not rated/graded by the Cinema Evaluation Board of the Film Development Council of the Philippines and writes, "One reviewer finds it “a rambling narrative with no clear direction.” Another cites the attack against Catholicism, particularly “the grotesquely, lewd scene of a shaman masturbating while singing Salve Regina.” The reviewer concludes that “Over all, the Balangiga story is ultimately bigger than the story of hate, murder, and sexual perversion that this film unfortunately chose to focus on."[8]