Good Old Horror Movies

I love horror movies especially the Asian horror ones because they’re unique. As years went by local horror movies has turned little less scary than the old ones so I just would often download Thailand, Korean, Japanese horror flicks because I find them a lot scary, demented, weirder than ours. I guess because they still infuse their cultural beliefs about paranormal to their horror movies nowadays despite the prevalence of digital effects comparable to that of Hollywood horror movies. Their use of digital effects are pretty much similar to ours but there’s something inexplicable with the way they present their horror movies. What happened to the good old Filipino horror flicks? 

With this in mind, let me go back to one of the best Filipino horror movies I’ve seen in my lifetime, ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll II.’ 

I never thought my sister will still find a copy online considering it was really old. It was shown 25 years ago as part of the Metro Manila Film Festival, a local movie festival which is only held every Christmas. I was still a kid back then and for some reason I’ve already been fascinated with horror movies.

Shake, Rattle and Roll II (1990)

The movie was divided into three parts: 

1. Shake - “Multo” (horror, drama)
2. Rattle - “Kulam” (horror, comedy)
3. Roll - “Aswang” (horror, suspense)

“Multo” (Ghost)

Casts:

• Janice De Belen ,Eric Quizon - husband and wife
• Eddie Gutierrez - psycho
• Isabel Granada - victim
• Caridad Sanchez - the haunted house’s caretaker

I’m sorry I did not catch their character names so I’ll just use their celebrity names instead. 

Newlywed couple Janice and Eric headed off to Baguio for their honeymoon. Caridad Sanchez, the caretaker of the old house the couple was invited in, warned Janice about the dangers of staying overnight at that house but did not expound further why. 

During their first night, Janice had a nightmare about a Man (Eddie Gutierrez) with a scared as hell teenage girl (Isabel Granada). Isabel was forcibly dragged towards the Doctor’s chair, the next gruesome scene appeared to be an abortion totally gone wrong as there was a lot of blood. Eddie panicked, stabbed Isabel to death as if a demon possessed him. Then she woke up from her nightmare. Janice spoke to Caridad about her nightmare and again she was warned to go to a different hotel instead before something bad happens because nobody stays long on that house.

Eric was left alone in the house and as if on a trance found what seems to be Eddie’s old office, saw Eddie's ring, wore it and there you go he was possessed by his vengeful/demented spirit. Janice suddenly noticed Eric’s strange behaviour and almost got killed by the now possessed Eric. On the other hand, Eric was able to come back to his senses and told Janice to cut off his ring finger because he could no longer take Eddie’s ring off. Janice did cut his ring finger (bloody hell right?) and Eddie left Eric’s body.

“Kulam” (Voodoo)

Casts:

• Daisy Romualdez - the crazy Doctor who performs voodoo.
• Joey Marquez - the lady charmer
• Carmina Villaroel - who’s life was saved by Joey from rapists.
• Sylvia Sanchez - the horny nurse

Joey was confined at the hospital for broken bones after rescuing Carmina from a group of rapists. Carmina paid Joey a visit to thank him for saving her life but left sooner since it was already late and she needs to go home. 

Daisy, the middle aged Doctor, on the other hand, smitten by Joey’s playboy antics, thought he’s really into her, caught Joey and another nurse (Sylvia Sanchez) making out inside Joey’s hospital room. Daisy dragged Sylvia out of Joey’s room and threatened they will pay for what they did.

Daisy then turned Joey’s hospital room into some sort of a witch's den and whilst halfway to completing her black magic ritual towards this voodoo doll (with Joey's hair attached to it) someone paged her due to an emergency. Carmina bumped into the crazy Doctor prior to that and got her hair brush switched with the later.  On her way home, after noticing that her hair brush got switched, she immediately hurried back to the hospital to retrieve it found that Joey is now being hostage by Daisy (except she was out). Carmina rescued Joey by dragging him out of his room using a skateboard lol. Daisy found out about it eventually. 

Sylvia, the nurse, told the two that the Doctor indeed performs voodoo towards people she detest, thought of switching the voodoo doll’s hair into Daisy’s hair by tricking her that the entire Purefoods basketball team is at the hospital (say what?). Crazy things happened afterwards: the corpses at the morgue turned into zombies, the babies into ’tiyanak’ (baby monsters i should say). 

In the end, Carmina, Joey and Sylvia emerged victorious because they switched the voodoo doll’s hair to Daisy’s so she turned herself instead into a bullfrog.

“Aswang” (Shape shifting demon/monster)

Casts:

• Richard Gomez -the tricycle driver
• Manilyn Reynes 
• Ana Roces 
• Anjo Yllana
• Aljohn Jimenez
• Vangie Labalan
• Rex Cortez

Manilyn was invited by her friend (Ana Roces) to her province, in Siquijor (a place known to be inhabited by Aswangs) for a vacation.  Richard, the trike driver drove her to Ana’s barrio, tried to warn her outright to leave because it is dangerous for her to stay there. Manilyn, however, failed to catch what he was saying. 

Ana, on purpose took Manilyn to their town to become their ‘sacrifice’ which means she’ll die and get eaten by her Aswang folks. Manilyn saw Richard caged like an animal one night, he warned her again that they will kill her if she failed to escape because she went to a town full of Aswang. Ana's mother, Vangie, refuted what Richard said and even claimed that he was a murderer who killed his wife. Scared as hell, Manilyn though started having doubts about Ana. That night, she switched the tea that she’s drinking with that of Ana’s and found that they slipped a sleeping drug which made Ana fall asleep. Manilyn covered her body with blanket, pretended she was Ana and was shocked when Rex hit Ana’s head (whilst asleep) with something hard which instantly killed her. 

Manilyn tried to escape the town filled with savage monsters,  almost failed hadn’t for Aljohn who eventually rescued her. The two got away however, Anjo, Aljohn’s friend, was eaten by the Aswangs. After all the close calls, Aljohn killed the strongest one amongst all the Aswangs with a cross pendant and a slingshot.

For me, the last story though was the scariest of them all. I mean, what would you do if you were invited by your friend to come visit her province, not knowing she is an Aswang furthermore lives in a place inhabited by her kind? The thought of it makes me flinch. 

This flick still weirds me out/scares me for some reason lol. I can say it’s still way better compared to local horror movies nowadays considering they do not have digital effects yet back then. The raw-ness of the movie made it so much more convincing. 

Anyways, why can’t we bring back urban legends to modern day local horror flicks? Just saying. Our culture is so rich with those and I miss them.