Filipino horrors: Bahay na Pula (Red House), Matangtubig (Town in a Lake), Ma, Pagbabalat ng Ahas (Reptilia in Suburbia)

Cabinet of charcuteries

For my latest podcast (thanks to Karl Kaefer of Deviant Legion Network) I had to bone up on the best and the rest of recent Filipino horror. Could not catch everything, but what I did catch-- 

Pearl (Ti West, 2022)

Before swine

(Warning: plot twists discussed in explicit detail)

Ti West's Pearl (2022) is several things at once: 1) a horror film; 2) a prequel; 3) a claustrophobic character sketch of two women percolating in a pressure-cooker setting. 

Halloween Ends (David Gordon Green, 2022

So long and thanks for all the flesh

(Warning: plot twists and story discussed in explicit detail)

Heard the feedback: Worse Halloween ever. Slow and boring. Where's Michael? Who's the new guy?-- and I agree. Worse Halloween ever, not much of a slasher film. 

But what it is as it turns out is a pretty interesting David Gordon Green film. 

Batang West Side (West Side Avenue, Lav Diaz, 2001)

Street child

Lav Diaz's Batang West Side (West Side Avenue, 2001), about the killing of a young Filipino-American and the murder investigation that follows, was at five hours the longest Filipino or Southeast Asian film ever made at the time. 

Blonde (Andrew Dominick, 2022)

Bombshell

Andrew Dominik's Blonde is a horror film that fails not because it's so sadistic but because it's not sadistic enough. 

Ang Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo (The Python in the Old Dome, Gerardo de Leon, 1955)

Phallic symbol

Gerardo de Leon's Ang Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo tells the story of an outsized man: Tulume (Jose Padilla Jr.), former farmer turned bandit when the Spanish Guardia Civil (Civil Guards) kill his wife (this during the years of Spanish rule). Now he's leader of his own gang, with a bounty of thousands on his head.

Kapag Wala Nang Mga Alon (When the Waves are Gone, Lav Diaz, 2022)

Vengeance is mined

Lav Diaz's Kapag Wala Nang Mga Alon (When the Waves are Gone) premiered out-of-competition at the 2022 Venice Film Festival to muted if appreciative applause. If the acclaim isn't as loud, that may be because the film isn't as epically proportioned as A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery or as politically incendiary as The Halt or Season of the Devil. What it is tho is Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo told only as Diaz can: leisurely paced, crudely recorded (on severely monochrome Kodak 16 mm), with absolutely no music whatsoever (all onscreen singing or dancing performed a capella).

And it's a revenge story.