‘P77’ is trapped, not in a penthouse, but in a tangle of its own half-realized ambitions. It toys with ideas of madness, colonial legacy, and family dysfunction, but never allows any of them to breathe. It gestures toward meaning, but never gets there. And no amount of screaming and crying can make up for a story that chooses escape over reckoning.

Instead of opting for a straightforward depiction of the infamous case of the Philippines’ first documented serial killer, Mallari chooses a wild, albeit frustratingly complex, yet enjoyably ambitious approach that may or may not impress you.