By Noel Vera Apr 11, 2006, 9:06 GMT
Horror isn't a respected genre in the Philippines--actually, it gets little respect everywhere--but there's been good, maybe even great, work done in the country.
Pepito (a bad guy) from 'Under the Cogon Grass’
Gerardo de Leon started a trend with 'Terror is a Man' (1959), loosely based on H.G. Wells' 'The Island of Dr. Moreau,' but because of a small budget, Wells' monsters were reduced to one limping Leopard Man.
De Leon's atmospheric style made up for lack of monsters, however, and the film earned enough money that De Leon followed up with a series of so-called sequels, the 'Blood Island' movies: fun if carelessly made flicks full of nudity and gut-spattering gore.
De Leon also directed a pair of vampire films--'Kulay Dugo ang Gabi' (Blood is the Color of the Night, 1966), and 'Dugo ng Vampira' (Blood of the Vampires, 1971) which are worth seeing for the lovely visuals and seething subtext of incestuous passions.
In the '70s, some of the best horror films include Lino Brocka's 'Gumising Ka, Maruja (‘Wake Up, Maruja’, 1978) about a pair of doomed lovers haunting a film crew.
Omnibus films--short films collected under a theme--were a popular format for Filipino horror, started mainly by the popular 'Gabi ng Lagim' (Night of Horror, 1960).
Some of the best Filipino-flavored chills can be found in short doses: 'Frigidaire,' part of the omnibus 'Shake, Rattle and Roll,' 1984, is a witty horror-comedy about a--believe it or not—psycho refrigerator; Mario O'Hara's 'Halimaw sa Banga' (‘Monster in the Jar’, part of the 1986 omnibus 'Halimaw') is a memorable tale about a young girl, her jealous evil stepmother, and, of course, a monster hiding in a huge terra-cotta jar.
That's about the cream of the crop; the more typical Filipino horror movies now-a-days combine huge helpings of comedy, cheap CGI effects, and poorly made prosthetics, usually someone decked out in a furred-and-fanged costume, tossing victims around for the fun of it.
Rico Ilarde is one of the most interesting and latest horror filmmakers. Unlike the others mentioned, he's faithful to the genre; almost all his output is horror or science-fiction horror.
His 'Dugong Birhen' (‘Blood of the Virgin’, 1999) features messy makeup (a witch doctor's curse turns a Spanish conquistador into the living dead) opposed by an action hero of few words (martial-arts champion Monsour del Rosario, who can literally kick ass).
'Babaing Putik' (‘Woman of Mud’, 2001) has a beautiful woman (Klaudia Koronel, who walks and moves like a two-legged erotic joke) slathered in sticky blood and facing off with a warrior-poet. In both these commercial-film features Ilarde tells a perfectly serious tale of faced horror, but adds bits of comic-book heroism (martial arts, archery, military training).
The hero of Ilarde's latest, 'Sa Ilalim ng Cogon' (‘Under the Cogon Grass’, 2005) is a former soldier named Sam (Yul Servo) forced to hide out in a huge mansion surrounded by a sea of cogon grass.
He makes good use of the silence and stillness to ratchet up the tension; the mansion itself makes for a grand third character, with its airless rooms and aura of brooding secrecy.
It won top prize in last year's Rojo Sangre Film Festival, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Noel Vera is author of Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema.
You can visit him at: http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html
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