Wang Fam stars Pokwang and Benjie Paras as Malou and Boo who fall for each other when the latter has gone to an uncharted forest to find “unique” plants only to meet a problematic woman in black to the tune of a remix of Regine Velasquez’s Dadalhin. Right then, the story delivers nothing but silliness–something that has always been the trademark of its director Wenn Deramas. Speak of the name and one can run a long list of comedy films that fail to dish out anything funny, let alone provide avenues to good comedians to showcase their talents other than through loud antics.

As your typical and never-innovative Deramas flick, Wang Fam has no funny scene at all as it lacks substance despite having a story. Boo Wang serves as a savior to Malou when they get married for her to get away with being an on-the-hunt virgin needed by the aswang clan to propagate through their queen (Vangie Labalan in her most awkward prosthetics). As she becomes Mrs. Malou Wang and having had intercourse with Mr. Boo Wang (yes, the wordplays are as good as those), the ritual to transfer the aging queen’s spirit fails. The clan goes berserk over the man who has ruined the only chance they got to keep the bloodline running. As everyone turns rowdy, Boo is bitten and turns into one oddly-toothed aswang.

18 years later, the Wang family still transfers from one place to another whenever they get caught as aswangs by neighbors and villagers. Malou and Boo, alongside his brother (Atak Arana), move to the city with and raised three children: Duke Wang (Andre Paras), Cala Wang (Abbey Bautista) and Vey Wang (Alonzo Muhlach).

In the city, they struggle to get along with the curious neighbors including the characters played by the husky-voiced Candy Pangilinan and the ever-reliable Joey Paras among others. They do everything just so the neighbors would not think of them as aswangs and accept them as part of the community.

To give conflict to the otherwise peaceful, flour-faced family, some aswangs led by Malou’s brother Jok-Jok (Wendell Ramos) go to the city to seek revenge to the Wang Family. This brings trouble not just to the family but also to the neighborhood where they spend the wee hours to nourish their blood-sucking selves.

On the side is the love story of Duke and Elenita (Yassi Pressman) which begins in your usual the-girl-slips-and-the-boy-catches-and-it-was-love-at-first-sight. It is the movie’s answer to the necessity of having a loveteam and most probably the production outfit’s testing grounds for the delayed romantic-comedy Girlfriend for Hire. Since they look great together, their moments could have tickled some heartstrings with more push at the seams of the story and not just through conventional episodes of kilig.

Looking at Wang Fam’s story closely could make one realize that it follows a decent story albeit filled with moth-eaten jokes that do not tickle the senses anymore. It tries its best to keep the comic atmosphere flowing in the air and rushing through the veins of its characters but all of these attempts remain so all throughout.

As characters exaggerate with their shrilling voices and movements, it couldn’t be helped but to shut the ears instead of dwelling into the fun it could have been. It is as if it does not want to go any further than how Deramas intends his comedy to be: as long as it appeals to the masses, it should be used by the book.

However, in this time and age, what is truly appealing to the masses more than lame jokes and slurs? As long as the audience demands for this kind of material, more and more end products like Wang Fam will be realized for the general public to consume despite lacking the essential bits that could induce at the very least thinking and better reasoning.