Shake Rattle & Roll X (2008, Mike Tuviera / Topel Lee)

Filmmakers Mike Tuviera and Topel Lee tried their best to scare viewers in the first two chapters, which are set in places people are likely to regard as safe and secure. Emergency is an aswang story set in a busy hospital. A major theme from the short feature is environmental degradation, which also crops up in the Tuviera-megged Nieves. The aswangs are forced to come out after incursions by people into their forest haven. They fight back after the death of their leader's child.

I love the black smoke effects by Larger Than Life. The ceiling-and-wall climbing aswangs need a little bit of tinkering and polishing, though.

Class Picture segment stars Gerald Anderson, Kim Chiu, and Erich Gonzales. It deals with a group of students attempting to stop a curse wrought by a nun who taught at 19th century San Selino College. The short feature is good enough for a few shrieks.

The handful of scares gives way to laughter. Yes, you read it right. Laughs came courtesy of the charming third segment featuring Marian Rivera as a kooky slayer named Nieves. Think of a 21st-century Gabriela Silang. Provide her with a Batman-worthy belt set and a native bag full of amulets, potions and knick-knacks (bluetooth headset!). Then, garb her in a sexy ultra-modern terno. What you get is the first engkantolarya, a lovely and courageous slayer of jealous engkantos, mischievous creatures, and terrifying monsters.

Nieves is a female albularyo raised to the next level. Not only can she cure mysterious illnesses, she kills off the root of the maladies with the ease of Buffy. Add the frank, acerbic wit of a stand-up comic, the pop culture sensibility of a jolog, and the mesmerizing beauty of a lovestruck angel, and you've got yourself one of the best movie characters in a long, long while.

Nieves was supposed to have a spin-off film last year but it didn't push through. It would have been a well-deserved break from the Shake, Rattle & Roll (SRR) formula of pure thrills and chills.

The horror series is a perennial blockbuster during the holiday season. But, most of the stories are basically pedestrian, recycled ones. Regal Films is wily enough to throw in the star power in order to camouflage the weaker segments. The tenth edition of the series is one of the better editions yet. Nieves is up there with the SRR gems such as Ishmael Bernal's Pridyider. For those wondering, Rivera has a starring role in an entry to the 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival. I hope she does magic once more to her new character, Super Inday.

Patayin Mo Sa Sindak Si Barbara (1974, Celso Ad Castillo)

The smart and pretty accurate title says it all! This classic is really a terrifying chiller of a movie.

Nurse Barbara Enriquez (Susan Roces) comes back to the Philippines to attend the wake and interment of her stepsister, Ruth Martinez (Rosanna Ortiz). She extends her stay in order to help her niece Karen cope with the loss of her mother. Meanwhile, strange things begin tormenting the members of the household.

Director Castillo utilized mirror and glass reflections to enhance the visual appeal of the film. He also came up with distorted shots and eerie camera angles to heighten the terror index.

I can’t forget the cemetery scene involving Ruth and Barbara. I remember Rosanna Ortiz from her films with Dolphy. I never imagine that she can be this effective in portraying a vengeful woman. The piercing glances of Ruth are diabolic. The scorned woman is really bent on killing people who have hurt her. From that point on, the suspense goes on full throttle until the end of the movie.

One of my favorite scary moments sees Fritz Martinez (Dante Rivero) approaching Barbara at the fountain. You can feel Barbara is uncomfortable talking to Fritz. The audience is left wondering if they indeed had an affair. There is unbearable icy tension because Ruth may chance upon them. When the doll appeared, I nearly jumped from my seat. The excellent music score played a big part in setting the mood.

The only false note in the film is Barbara's attempt to calm down Karen by reciting the Apostle's Creed. Susan Roces' delivery bordered on campiness. That was the only thing that marred Roces' otherwise fine performance.

I hope Cinema One includes this horror classic in its annual film festival/competition. It deserves to be seen in a darkened movie theater. Try to imagine ogling the eyes of the vengeful Ruth on the big screen! Whew! That ought to be a spine-tingling moviehouse experience.

The Leaving (2010, Ian Loreños)

Unfriended.

If you're a regular Facebook denizen, then you've probably experienced having your name removed from a friend's list of contacts. It hurts badly, especially if you haven't an inkling why you were obliterated from the list.

The emotional pain pales in comparison with the terrible anguish of a Chinoy young man named Martin. He also gets dumped without any explanation. The dumper in this case is his girlfriend! He wanders around Chinatown in his troubled state. He wants to confront her but something deters him and that is the fear of the truth. He knows she is no longer interested in him.

The Leaving deals with the fears of Chinese-Filipinos in Binondo. Director Ian Loreños laments the fading traditions and changing landscape in his neighborhood. There are fewer speakers of Chinese language among the youth. Dilapidated houses are torn down to make way for condominiums and malls. Scores of families leave for better places. This diaspora brings out some fears and anxieties in young Chinoys.

Loreños brilliantly frames their stories within the horror genre. He is quite successful in bringing out the screams although a bit too much reliance on Asian horror imagery (eg. Sigaw's empty corridors and the fiends of Japanese horror films). He fails to maximize the Chinese Ghost Month setting of the movie. A Singaporean movie The Maid starring Alessandra de Rossi was more effective in scaring viewers with Ghost Month tales and traditions. The Kelvin Tong film features memorable spooky vignettes such as the reason behind vacant seats at performances and the punishment for people who've done bad things during the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar. Singapore was shown as hell for Pinay domestic helpers.

LJ Reyes won an acting award for her role as the martyr wife Grace in The Leaving. Her student year/s at St. Stephen High School gave her the tools to portray a Chinese-speaking character. Just like the betrothed lass of Limbunan, Grace gets bamboozled by an elder with the positive aspects of arranged marriages. The gist of her mother's advice is that as long as she (Grace) gets to eat three meals a day then the marriage is fine. I'm sure young Chinese women will raise hell with this pathetic advice. Incidentally, the Singaporean movie The Maid has a vivid hellish view of an arranged marriage.

Unfriended? Dumped? Betrayed?

The Leaving asks you to retreat, pray, move. Moving on is not enough. Martin goes from place to place but ends up distraught at the end of the day. Grace keeps on living her uneventful daily life the same way over and over again. Both characters eventually see the light and reexamine their lives and priorities. They pray for guidance and discernment. They move forward and leave the ghosts of the past.

Sigaw (2004, Yam Laranas)

Sigaw is one of the better films dealing with the horrors of domestic abuse. I liked it better than the Cinemalaya 2009 film Ang Panggagahasa Kay Fe, which left me bewildered.

I envy those people who have experienced seeing the Laranas film on the big screen. It must have been a swell time for those lucky moviegoers. The movie made a huge impression on me even if I just saw it on a medium-sized television set.

I love the mood-setting opening scenes with shots of empty halls and spiral stairways. The sound effects heighten the chill factor. I adore the suspenseful set-pieces such as the initial appearance of Pinky (Angel Locsin) and the tormenting of Pinky by a malevolent spirit inside the vacant unit.

The visually and aurally stunning chiller asks the question: What is more horrifying, a plethora of ghost apparitions or the specter of domestic violence?

What if both haunt you every night?

That is the problem facing Marvin (Richard Gutierrez) in his recently purchased condominium unit. Every night, he hears a couple fighting across the hall. The bloodcurdling screams of the wife pierces through his room. Even if he wants to intervene, he is afraid of the wife’s husband, a policeman. The sleep-deprived young man complains to the caretaker.

Marvin learns the truth about the family living in the room down the hallway. They are somehow connected with the ghosts that appear in his unit. A fateful close encounter with the couple convinces him to leave the place.

Sigaw was recently remade into an American film titled The Echo, which was also directed by Yam Laranas. Actress Iza Calzado reprises her award-winning role as the maltreated wife in the latter film. With Laranas and Calzado back on board, I will surely watch the American remake in a movie house. This is the next best thing to experiencing Sigaw on the big screen.

Tarot (2009, Jun Lana)

Director Jun Lana is an award-winning playwright and scriptwriter. He is the youngest member of the Palanca Hall of Fame. His first horror film Mag-Ingat Ka Sa...Kulam has a well-written story with a nice plot twist.

However, Tarot, his second horror film, is an overwrought mess. It features a lot of story twists and surprises aimed at keeping the audience hooked. For a while, the ploy works but eventually the story gets too convoluted.

The film starts strong and in a brisk pace. A young girl named Cara stumbles upon the tarot cards of her grandma, Lola Auring (Gloria Romero). Instinctively, she divines what the cards are trying to say. She innocently says to her grandma that there will be a snowfall in the Philippines. When snow-like ash fell and covered their house, the audience is hooked to the story of the elder’s heir apparent and successor.

The movie further unravels the young girl’s use of her divination powers, which was then curtailed by her mother after the death of two family members. We next see Cara (Marian Rivera) as a young lady searching for her lost boyfriend, Miguel (Dennis Trillo). Out of desperation, she retrieves back the tarot cards of her grandma and promptly uses them to rescue her lover. Soon after, her family members and friends meet untimely deaths at the hands of veiled killers.

The plot surprises were not surprising at all. The picture in the wallet of Miguel telegraphs some twists way in advance. The director or editor should have deleted the scene. Also, Lola Nena’s narration of the tarot cards’ connection with a cult leader raises more questions than answers. What exactly triggered the killing spree by the veiled ones? Is there a curse related to using the tarot cards? Is there a curse on the family of the cult leader?

The big question though is how effective is the film in scaring the wits out of audiences? Unfortunately, the film also fails in this aspect. Indeed, no new local horror films this year have been successful in scaring multitudes. There is still hope for horror fans, though. There is still The Echo and some entries at the Metro Manila Film Festival.

Yanggaw (2008, Richard Somes)

Early editions of Cinema One Originals brought us two exemplary horror films. Topel Lee’s black-and-white film Dilim is about a male vampire who fights criminals and evil beings. It is sort of a Filipino Batman movie. The second film, Altar, was directed by Rico Ilarde. It is an excellent chiller dealing with a former boxer destined to keep an evil spirit from wrecking havoc. Both directors went on to do horror films for major studios. However, none of their well-budgeted films matched the chills of their earlier films.

Last year’s horror treat from Cinema One Originals is a fairly good movie. Yanggaw nabbed most of the awards, including the Best Director award and the Audience Choice award, at the 2008 competition. The two leads, Ronnie Lazaro and Tetchie Agbayani, grabbed the top acting plums.

Yanggaw is a Hiligaynon word meaning infected. A doctor advises Amor Villacin (Aleera Montalla) to go home to recuperate from her illness. When her bouts with sudden weakness worsen, her mother seeks help from faith healer Lazarus (Erik Matti). He tells the family members that Amor is infected by a poison of an evil spirit. Amor slowly transforms into an aswang, a monster feasting on flesh and blood.

Junior (Ronnie Lazaro) had a hard time accepting his daughter is a monster. He chains her to a bed for days but eventually frees her out of pity and paternal love. Amor starts to feed on stray animals. Soon, human corpses start to appear in the village. Junior makes a special request for Amor not to prey on her family but to kill only their neighbors and strangers.

Director and scriptwriter Somes wanted audiences to realize the repercussions of extreme loyalty to family members and kin. The excellent script deftly tackled the terrifying tendency of some Filipinos to cover up crimes of their family members. Junior and his son kept quiet about their involvement in the death of a stranger. The whole Villacin family was soon infected by this negative trait. The family members allowed Amor to quench her thirst for blood. In the end, they paid a huge price for their misdeeds.

The direction is superb although a bit stagy with the interior scenes. The director’s handling of the actors is excellent. The acting by the whole ensemble is one of the film’s best assets. I also remember the amazing special effects and sound effects. The part showing Lazarus’ attempt to expel the evil spirit is a memorable scene. It makes your blood curdle while at the same time feeling sorry for the family members.

Yanggaw may not be at par with the magnificent Altar but I liked it better than the latest horror blockbusters such as Lee’s Sundo, Ilarde’s Villa Estrella, and Chito Roño’s T2. There is no horror entry in the Cinema One Originals competition this year, so if you want to sample a Cinema One horror film, then catch Yanggaw while it is still showing at indieSine.