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Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2012
Friday, November 4, 2011
"ASWANG! Filipino New Blood" program at FAFF 2011
TRASH VIDEO PROGRAMS “ASWANG! FILIPINO NEW BLOOD” at the FANTASTIC ASIA FILM FESTIVAL…A celebration of Asian genre cinema!
Finally Australia has a film festival dedicated to genre film-making from the most exciting cinematic continent on the planet – Asia.
At a time where many Hollywood genre films are marred by predictability, lack of inspiration and play it ‘safe’ mentality, Asian genre films glow like electric beacons in the murky waters of mediocrity, reminding lovers of cinema that creativity and inspiration are not dead – not even close to it!
So, what is ‘genre’ you may wonder? Well we are looking at films in the classic Hollywood genre tradition – horror, sci-fi, fantasy and action as well as some that are unique to the region. In particular this year there will be a spotlight on contemporary Pinku Eiga (Japans famed erotic genre that has been going strong since the 1960′s).
Over four days in mid-November at Melbourne’s prolific Nova Cinema complex, Melbourne will buzz with some of the finest genre films from the Asia-Pacific region. Films from Japan, South Korea, China. Hong Kong and the Philippines will kick things off for 2011 and as the festival grows, we will reach out to other Asian territories, lighting up Australian screens with more Asian genre greatness.
Some of the worlds finest and most exciting cinematic talent will be showcased at the inaugural Fantastic Asia Film Festival – already confirmed are bold new titles from Korean maestro Na Hong-Jin, Japan’s L’enfant terrible Sion Sono as well as the mind twisting extremities of Japan’s Sushi Typhoon label and the best and bizarre of Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noburo Iguchi.
There will be guests, there will be events, there will be pure unadulterated Asian cinematic madness.
You are going to love the Fantastic Asia Film Festival! Click www.faff.com.au for the full program .
“ASWANG! FILIPINO NEW BLOOD” Curated and introduced by Trash Video’s Andrew Leavold
Nova Cinema, 11.30am Sunday 13th November
Two new sensational horrors from the heart of the Filipino darkness!
For many Filipinos, the provinces are a place of innocence and dread, where “civilization” ends and the pre-Christian terrors begin: shape-shifting creatures, vengeful ghosts, and evil spirits or Aswangs, all living in the cracks between the light.
It’s no surprise that the Philippines has had such a wealthy tradition of horror cinema, and Rico Maria Ilarde and Richard Somes are its most dangerous talents. FAFF is proud to introduce to Australian audiences two genre specialists with an unwavering command of the genre’s conventions, but with such inimitable filmmaking styles, and bodies of work that are brutal, uncompromising, independent of spirit, and unshakably Filipino.
ALTAR
“Altar, [Ilarde's] latest masterpiece, is an ultra-compact exploration of pinoy spirituality done in the most concise horror film terms possible” Olaf Moller, Senses Of Cinema
A failed boxer takes a job renovating a house deep in the countryside. There’s no electricity, a chapel upstairs, and what looks like a religious altar in the cellar – but just under its painted exterior is something infinitely more sinister. Director Ilarde plays havoc with Catholic iconography in a taut, pared-back thriller of pagan rituals, defrocked priests, and the phantom of a young girl doomed to witness Altar’s unspeakable horrors.
RUNNING TIME 90 mins / 2007 / Philippines / Horror / Aspect TBA
Director: Rico Maria Ilarde (Z-Man, Dugo Ng Birhen: El Kapitan, Ang Babaeng Putik, Shake Rattle & Roll 2K5 [“Aquarium” segment], Beneath The Cogon, Villa Estrella)
Cast: Zanjoe Marudo, Nor Domingo, Dimples Romana, Dido De La Paz
DIRECTOR BIO: No other Filipino filmmaker has embraced the horror genre with such passion and talent as US-educated Rico Maria Ilarde. His early predilection for sex-and-blood shockers such as Dugo Ng Birhen: El Kapitan (“Blood Of The Virgin: The Captain”, 1999) and Ang Babaeng Putik (“Woman Of Mud, 2000) has evolved into an impressive body of work revealing an innate understanding of tension and trauma. Ilarde is currently in pre-production on his first international production.
YANGGAW/“AFFLICTION”
“…an achievement, mixing traditional elements of horror and family melodrama, creating a picture that is so bizarre, it will be stuck to your mind months after seeing it.” Francis Cruz, Lessons From The School Of Inattention
Amor returns to her village with a mystery illness; a faith healer claims she is possessed by an evil spirit, and her family inadvertently aid her transformation into a bloodsucking, baby-eating aswang. The blackness of the provinces’ nights, and the sanctity of a Filipino family ripped asunder, provide the heady backdrops for Somes’ feature debut, a grimly realistic take on Filipino folklore that’s as gore-streaked as it is genuinely unsettling.
RUNNING TIME 98 mins / 2008 / Philippines / Horror / Aspect TBA
Director: Richard Somes (Shake Rattle & Roll 2K5 [“Ang Lihim Ng San Joaquin” segment], Ishmael)
Cast: Ronnie Lazaro, Tetchie Agbayani, Joel Torre, Aleera Montalla, Erik Matti
DIRECTOR BIO: Cavite-born Somes learnt his craft as production designer for fantasy and horror specialist Erik Matti (Pa-Siyam, Gagamboy) before graduating to the director’s chair. His critically acclaimed aswang segment for Regal Films’ horror anthology Shake Rattle And Roll 2K5 was followed by three features for Star Cinema’s independent wing, including Pinoy action tribute Ishmael (2010) and possession tale Corazon (currently in post-production).
Pinoy thrillers in Melbourne: Filipino filmmakers make it in Asian horror fest in Australia
by Bayani San Diego Jr, Philippine Daily Inquirer November 3, 2011
Pinoy thrillers are making their mark in Asian horror.
Two Filipino films have been included in the lineup of the Fantastic Asia Film Festival, to be held in Melbourne, Australia, from Nov. 10 to 13.
Film critic and scholar Andrew Leavold handpicked Rico Maria Ilarde’s “Altar” and Richard Somes’ “Yanggaw” to be part of the fest, alongside films from China, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.
Leavold, who has been writing extensively about Philippine cinema, considers Ilarde and Somes as “two of the most fascinating talents working in genre films at present.”
He pointed out that the two filmmakers are “two radically different personalities, representing divergent filmmaking styles.”
Rico, said Leavold, “is steeped in pop culture and has that formal film-school-training style.” Somes, on the other hand, “approaches film in a more intuitive fashion.”
Leavold regards “Altar” and “Yanggaw” as “arguably their best films to date… possessing a deep understanding of the genre, while remaining unmistakably Filipino.”
He described “Altar,” which top-bills Zanjoe Marudo and Dimples Romana, as a “slow-burner… allowing the intricately plotted script to build tension. It says so much about the chasm between city and countryside, civilization and the dark unknown.”
He chose “Yanggaw,” which features Ronnie Lazaro and Tetchie Agbayani, because “it’s a jarring modern take on the aswang legend, equating demonic possession with a kind of addiction.”
Leavold has always been drawn to horror flicks. “Dark fantasy is an important cathartic process in working out our inner demons. Experiencing those fears safely and vicariously via horror films is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute.”
He related that the horror festival is a brainchild of Monster Pictures, a distribution and production company based in Melbourne.
“The fest is the first of its kind in Australia,” he noted. “Hopefully, it’ll be the first of many that will showcase the DVD label’s Asian acquisitions.”
The fest aims to introduce Australian audiences to “new films, new industries, even new countries, they may not have had the opportunity to experience” previously.
In a bizarre twist, Leavold discovered Philippine cinema because of a pint-sized Pinoy James Bond.
“When I was younger, I saw Weng Weng in ‘For Your Height Only,’” he recalled. “I instantly fell in love with him. From that moment on, I wanted to know all I could about the cinema and culture from where Weng Weng had sprung.”
He conceded: “Obsession is a strange creature. Now, I get to teach film in the Philippines and consider Manila my second home. All thanks to Weng Weng.”
Leavold hopes to release his book on Filipino genre filmmaking, “Bamboo Gods and Bionic Boys,” next year.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Bruka Queen Of Evil (1975)
[Philippines release date 18th July 1975; a Hong Kong-Filipino co-production, export title “Bruka Queen Of Evil”]
Director Albert Yu Producer Jimmy L. Pascual [other sources credit Jimmy with Screenplay] Dialogue Yuen Shiao Po Cameraman Leung Kwok Kuen Music Chow Fu Liang Editor Lee Yam Hai In Charge of Production Fely Pascual Production Manager Vic Kwong Assistant Director David Yau Interpretor Teddy Chiu [as Tedmund Chiu] Special Effects Michael Fung Lights Chui Kwok Kuen Makeup Soledad Mauricio Wardrobe Romana Tablate Stills Wong Tit Huang Setting Maurio Carmona Props Ng Chau Electrician Tiburcio Pacia
Cast Alex Lung, Rosemarie Gil, Etang “Ditched”/Discher (Bruka), Sandra de Veyra, Yukio Someno, Anthony Lee, Michael Kwan, Charlie Davao, Connie Angeles, Darius Razon, Tintoy, Matimtiman Cruz, Roldan Rodrigo, Bruno Punzalan, Greg Lozano, Ramon D’Salva, Pedro Faustino, Alfonso Carvajal, Eileen Montinola, Ben Manalo, Michael de Mesa, Rocco Montalban, Kristina Kasten, Sancho Tesalona, Eddie Nicart, Jimmy Cruz, Gigi Vellasenor
Review by Andrew Leavold
Back in 1974, a Filipino producer named Jimmy L. Pascual ended his two year run of Hong Kong-based kung fu productions and brought his film outfit to the Philippines to make a film called Devil Woman. Essentially a chop sockey cashing in on the kung fu craze like Pascual’s previous films (The Bloody Fists [1972], The Awaken Punch [1973] amongst others), Devil Woman is a rudimentary revenge saga with fantastic elements and snake motif, a familiar ingredient in Asian horror. Despite the regulation atrocious dubbing and wooden dialogue, Rosemarie Gil is positively regal as the snake-haired queen seeking revenge on the townsfolk for burning her parents alive, and the film was a minor hit, even receiving a theatrical run in the US, and has retained a small fanatical cult following thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s regular screenings.
For years, fans of Devil Woman saw posters for a film called Bruka Queen Of Evil featuring Rosemarie Gil’s distinctive coiffure, and assumed it was one of Devil Woman’s numerous export titles. When a trailer finally appeared, the Devil Woman herself, Manda the Snakewoman, was indeed in the film – but with entirely different footage of bats, walking trees, and an army of little people. Was this the Filipino cut of Devil Woman for the local market merely redubbed and resold, or an entirely different film? Alas, no version of Bruka could be found, even amongst the most intrepid of Asian collectors.
Imagine my surprise, then, to discover a copy of Bruka Queen Of Evil last month in my post box. Ten minutes later, I can confirm Bruka is no Devil Woman. Although made by the same production team and with many of the original’s cast, its immediate sequel Bruka is an entirely different creature. A quantum improvement on Devil Woman, the film throws open Manda’s own personal narrative, giving her both a legacy and a destiny, and adds a new protagonist’s magical quest against a seemingly improbable array of oddities.
Bruka begins as Devil Woman ends, with Manda engulfed in flames as she falls over a cliff. Miraculously she survives, and wakes in a cave next to a white-haired hag and a cadre of dwarves. “I’m your grandmother,” the hag Bruka declares, and to prove the point, unfurls her fifteen-foot snake body. She then shows Manda flashbacks to her birth in a crystal ball, revealing Manda’s mother to have chosen a mortal husband over her reptilian heritage. Manda’s so happy at the family reunion, she literally dances for joy! Surrounding her is a brand new arsenal for her protection: bats, rock creatures, tree-men, and shape-shifting dwarves into snakes. Veteran contrabida Charlie Davao is the test case, a poor villager who sees a figure under a sheet in his yard. It turns out to be a wooden cross covered in reptiles who almost drown him in venom. And with that, the Devil Woman sequel has already shape-shifted itself to the next level of weirdness.
Grandma Bruka now gives her granddaughter a special gift – a black stone which turns her head full of angry snakes into human hair for as long as she keeps the stone in her mouth. To test the theory, she goes for a jungle stroll and kisses the first unfortunate hippie with a guitar who stumbles upon her. Spitting out the stone, the snakes pounce. Exssssscelent! In Bruka, Manda is no longed killing simply for revenge, and is instead awakening her true inner evil, and exploiting her outward normalcy to indulge her more primal, destructive instincts.
In Bruka, Manda faces a new antagonist in the shape of poor and angry Chinese Hong Pin (Pascual’s kung fu kicking regular Alex Lung). He takes on the job of finding rich Mr Tony’s daughter Louisa to buy food for his ailing family. In an eerily effective sequence he walks into a village obliterated by Manda’s snake scourge, bodies strewn everywhere covered in flies and bite marks, and he helps bury the bodies alongside a priest (Ramon D’Salva) and his hunchbacked assistant. The forest is full of peril, warns the hunchback, and Hong Pin must seek a hermit’s help. And as if on cue, Bruka’s dwarves burst into the church, dissolve into snakes and cover the priest and cripple. With the hermit’s rope-belt-turned-into-a-pole, Hong Pin makes his way through hostile territory, through all manner of creatures, to the cave containing Louisa and her virginal companions, all ready to be sacrificed to the Snake Queens’ insidious blood cult.
Pascual’s Philippines output for his Emperor Films International included another starring role for Lung, Dragons Never Die (1974), released in the US on a double bill with Devil Woman, and three Tagalog horror films released in 1975 alone for the local market (Isinumpa, Pagsapit Ng Dilim and Pandemonium: Lupa, Langit At Impiyerno). But if there was ever destined to be Filipino Lords Of The Rings with evil, fondling, Riverdancing hobbits and bleeding trees, this is the one film to rule them all. Those with a snake phobia, BEWARE; those with eyebrows ready to be raised and a keenly-honed appreciation of the absurd, enjoy, and I’ll see you at Ermita’s all-dwarf bar Hobbit House for after-movie rum cocktails.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Dugo Ng Vampira (1969)
1969 – Dugo Ng Vampira/“Blood Of The Vampire” (VP Pictures/Sampaguita Pictures)
[Release date 12th June 1969]
Director/Screenplay Emmanuel H. Borlaza Story Rico Bello Omagap based on his Lagim Komiks serial Executive Producer/VP Pictures President “J.R.P” Cinematography Felipe S. Santiago Music Danny Holmsen Editor Marcelino Navarro Assistant Director Warlito M. Teodoro Camera Assistants Ernesto de la Paz, Mariano Manuel Special Photographic Effects Ricardo “Mang Andoy” Marcelino, Pete Carreon Sound Supervision Flaviano Villareal Rerecording Alfonso Nuke Rerecoding Assistants Tomas Olfindo, Tony Caymo Jr Recording Rosalino Torres Recording Assistants Amado Valdez, Pablo Paulino Assistant Editor Jessie Navarro Laboratory Technician Vicente J. Aquende Laboratory Assistant Rufino Rosales Printer Bobby Braga Printer Assistant Angel Braga Set Supervisor Bert Sto. Domingo Makeup/Hair Conching Morato Costume Supervisor Marichu E. Nina Titles Greg Alcid Jr Technical Assistant Ernesto M. Maceda
Cast Gina Pareno (Lucinda/Rosario), Edgar Salcedo (Victor), Myrna Delgado (Lucinda & Rosario’s Mother), Tito Galla (Rufo), Charlie Davao (Angustia the Vampire), Venchito Galvez, Ven Medina, Tita de Villa, Nenita Jana, Aring Bautista, Linda Martin, Glenn Bernardo, Gina Alajar (Young Lucinda), Bella Flores (Vampire Bride), German Moreno (Gay Tourist), Apolonio Abadeza, Jessette Prospero, Byron Cruz, Sammy Fresado, Nestor Arsenal, Leo Ferrer
Review by Andrew Leavold:
Horror has long been a staple of Filipino genre cinema, even in its earliest features prior to World War 2. Later horror films such as Gerry de Leon’s Kamay Ni Satanas (1950) and the Faustian tale Satur (dir. Lamberto V. Avellana, 1952) betray a ferocious Catholicism, while Ramadal (dir. Nemesio E. Caravana, 1958) - “BEWARE! An Invisible Man is on the loose in
As with much of the
Dugo Ng Vampira is very much a product of a studio system in decline, and it shows; Vera Perez Pictures was an offshoot of Sampaguita Films which until the early Sixties was part of the Big Three’s monopoly over Filipino cinema, along with LVN Pictures, and Premiere Productions, owned by Cirio H. Santiago’s family. Both The Blood Drinkers and Curse Of The Vampires were constructed from the ground up as export-friendly titles, filmed in technicolour and dubbed into English using the actors’ own voices. Dugo…, on the other hand, is a prime example of the local industry’s glaring limitations: patchy live sound, an unwieldy regulation 110-minute running time, a masala of melodrama and comedy based on a pre-branded komik series, and a dreadful transfer from a scratched, rat-assed black and white 35mm print. That the film still exists, however, is a miracle in itself; the fact it’s a decent populist Pinoy horror from the Sixties is, for the most part, pure cream.
Dugo Ng Vampira’s hand-scribed credits flash over an opening that’s vintage Universal horror: the town’s landed gentleman and unrepentant vampire Angustia (Charlie Davao) has just feasted on a young female victim (Bella Flores) and is now pursued by an angry mob of torch-carrying villagers. Cornered in the grounds of his villa, Angustia is staked through the heart with a sharpened cross and left to die alone in agony. With the sound of a howling wolf in the distance, he is tended to by his distraught sweetheart (Myrna Delgado), who removes the cross and buries him underneath it. Being mortal, she is also carrying the vampire’s children – twins, one good and one inherently evil – and after her mother is thrown down her stairs by an unseen force (linked to the cobra curled around the vampire’s grave marker!), she leaves one of the babies, flees the village with the other child, and heads in a trance directly for the sanctuary of Angustia’s villa.
Hasta la Vampira!
A decade passes, and the mother grows suspicious of her remaining child’s true nature. She catches the girl Lucinda (Gina Alajar) in a cave talking to a cobra and bat – and the bat, a bizarre sock puppet contraption with wings, is talking back! The girl plumps up quickly into a brazen teenaged hussy (Gina Pareno), unaware of the existence of her twin sister Rosario (also Pareno, without the excessively vampish makeup, puffy hair and go-go boots). Meanwhile the mouldered corpse of their father rises out of the soil, transforms into his suave former self, then disappears in a flapping of bat wings and reappears at the villa along with his last victim, unlocked from her cobra shell. Angustia and his new bride are keen to teach Lucinda the finer points of her vampiric legacy (“We need blood,” they hiss, “HUMAN blood…”), and take her for a flying visit around the craggy countryside looking for victims. It’s here the film’s rudimentary special effects – dissolves, jump cuts, miniatures for the Villa exterior – take a quantum leap: Lucinda complains of being tired, and suddenly the cabal split into two mid-air in typical Manananggal fashion, their fanged top halves continuing to soar while the bodies gently land. A simple optical effect, and positively prehistoric by today’s standards, but crudely and eerily effective.
Lucinda takes a flying split
Naturally the plaited, seminary-going
The Last Temptation of Rufo
More pronounced than ever is the presence of Evil – in this instance, vampirism - as a dramatic rip in the fabric of everyday, God-fearing, family-bound normalcy. The film’s core rests upon a triumvirate of dualistic relationships, one representing Good, or at the very least temporarily lost and potentially salvageable, and the other Evil: unwed mother and vampire Angustia, daughters Rosaria (Rosary, perhaps?) and Lucinda (Lucifer?) and brothers-at-war Victor and Rufo. The protracted finale sees not only Victor cornered and forced to kill his sibling (in a neat twist, with a conch shell!), but the mother to sacrifice her Bad Seed – by this moment, Angustia has already impaled his jealous vampire bride on the iron rod sticking out of his chest. “Why didn’t you call God?” demands the mother, as Lucinda writhes under the shadow of a makeshift cross. “Hope you rest in peace,” she says quietly, as Lucinda turns to ashes and is blown away by the wind. In Dugo’s intensely moral, necessarily komik page black-and-white universe, Evil is ultimately vanquished and the wayward are brought back to God’s bosom, but at a heavy price.
Vampire death by conch shell. A first?
At times you’d be forgiven for thinking Dugo… is a Bollywood remake of a Mexican vampire film: melodramatic, a fusion of Asian and Hispanic family-centricity, tarnished and years-weary, and entertaining in an arched, eccentric way. In its favour it’s not nearly as cloying and sentimental as it could be, there are no musical numbers to spoil the atmosphere, and the regulation comic relief from a mugging German Moreno – effeminate leader of a group of tourists stranded overnight at Angustia’s villa - is kept to a minimum, as is the teen soap angle (if Vilma Santos or Nora Aunor were the lead, God help us...). OK, so comparisons are mean, and so what if Dugo Ng Vampira is no Curse Of The Vampires? Sometimes it’s good to turn a blind eye to the Ugly Duckling’s smarter and prettier classmates and welcome them home as a lost child, sorely missed and never to be forgotten.
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