Naman Shrestha
In Netflix’s ‘Balaraw: Blood Island,’ a young woman named Sabina Tejeros has yet to get closure when it comes to her mother, who vanished into thin air several years earlier. Now that she is all grown up and mature, Sabina embarks on a dangerous journey to find out what really happened to her missing mother. Her search takes her to the sinister Balaraw Island, where she must navigate not only murky waters but also deeply buried secrets of her own family. As she delves deeper into the island’s mysteries, Sabina finds herself under threat as the line between folklore and reality blurs. The Filipino psychological horror drama series is set on the fictional Balaraw Island, where its open waters and jungles add a layer of tension and suspense to the narrative.
Balaraw: Blood Island Filming Locations
‘Balaraw: Blood Island’ is filmed entirely in the Philippines, primarily in and around Bataan. From what we can tell, principal photography for the inaugural iteration of the suspenseful series seemingly commenced around March 2025 and continued for about six months, with 53 shooting days, before wrapping up in late August of the same year. Janine Gutierrez, who portrays Sabina Tejeros, extended gratitude towards her fellow cast and crew members after the shoot concluded. She said, “I’m so grateful to be part of this project and I can’t wait to see it and share it.”
Expressing her appreciation towards the team’s cooperation as she navigated grief in her personal life, she added, “I’ve always expressed how lucky I feel to be part of this and I just am so thankful for every single person on this set. this shoot was my constant through 3 losses in my family and I’m just so happy that this is the set I kept coming back to through it all. thank you thank you to the cast and crew and staff (that I can’t tag yet) for this giant adventure.”
Bataan, Philippines
The production team of ‘Balaraw: Blood Island’ settled on the province of Bataan in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines to bring the show to life. Several spots in the region served as backdrops for Sabina’s journey into the unknown as she sets foot on the Balaraw Island in search of her missing mother. From what we can tell, to paint the visual canvas of some sequences, the crew took the assistance of the space and facilities of a film studio in Bataan.
A water tank of a production complex was likely used to tape the scenes set on water, particularly as Sabina and others make their way into uncharted territory and find themselves in the middle of a raging storm. The cast and crew also visited a local beach to capture the shots based on and against the backdrop of the sandy shore of the island. In addition, a portion of the filming of the Filipino horror drama series was conducted in a jungle, particularly to depict the psychological and atmospheric dread Sabina is subjected to during her mission. One of the scenes was particularly challenging as it involved shooting in the middle of the sea for two days.
In a press conference, Janine Gutierrez elaborated (translated), “There was a time where we shot in a boat. That was Tito Ronnie and me. We were actually out in the middle of the open sea, filming there. There was no going back to shore. There was just a smaller boat equipped with a portable toilet; so, whenever you needed a bathroom break, you’d transfer over to that boat, and then head back to the larger one.” In the same press conference, Ronnie Lazaro recounted his experience on the set of ‘Balaraw: Blood Island.’ He expressed his gratitude for being able to film the series across a wide range of locations in the Philippines. He added, “That was an experience I will never forget. We worked (on) this very good story, and we filmed it really well.”
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