A Filipino horror crime thriller that blurs the boundary between slasher killer and the supernatural subgenres. Directed and co-written by Yam Laranas. The two lead stars were Carmina Villarreal and Marvin Agustin.
The movie unfolds in three parts going backwards in time.
It opens in 2008, with the promotion of a cop, who is besieged by a woman to help find her two young daughters, who vanished 10 years earlier, along with a boy. The cop's commander urges him to solve the case.
The story flashes back to 1998, and then 1988, as it unravels who is doing what to whom - and why.
In Part I, three adolescents get lost on a deserted country road and encounter a driverless car and apparitions including that of a bloodied woman with a plastic bag tied around her head, a motif that Is repeated throughout.
In Part II, the two lost girls we are told about in Part I, break down on the same road, and are lured into sequestration by a passing country boy. The boy locks them up in separate rooms in a dilapidated house, chaining one of them up, and mercilessly beating up the second.
Part III explores the boy's childhood, as he is brought up in isolation by a disturbed mother who psychologically and physically abuses him, and a suicidal religious father unable to protect his son.
At the very end of the movie, the link between the cop and the boy, is revealed.
My major issue with the movie is Part I, where after the cop promotion ceremony, the screen is plunged into around 25 minutes of gloomy foggy darkness of an unlit country road, with apparitions of bloodied girls and driverless cars popping up here and there. I struggled to make sense of who is whom, and what is truly happening and why, as the scenes abruptly shift from long shots to close-ups, from scene to scene, from angle to angle. Moreover, the darkness made it difficult to easily pinpoint the film's subgenre; i.e. Killer slasher horror vs supernatural horror. Better editing could have helped. The moviegoer shouldn't be asked to struggle with determining a subgenre.
It is only when Part I comes to a close that the screen lightens up and the moviegoer can sit back and follow events with minimal confusion.
The movie unfolds in three parts going backwards in time.
It opens in 2008, with the promotion of a cop, who is besieged by a woman to help find her two young daughters, who vanished 10 years earlier, along with a boy. The cop's commander urges him to solve the case.
The story flashes back to 1998, and then 1988, as it unravels who is doing what to whom - and why.
In Part I, three adolescents get lost on a deserted country road and encounter a driverless car and apparitions including that of a bloodied woman with a plastic bag tied around her head, a motif that Is repeated throughout.
In Part II, the two lost girls we are told about in Part I, break down on the same road, and are lured into sequestration by a passing country boy. The boy locks them up in separate rooms in a dilapidated house, chaining one of them up, and mercilessly beating up the second.
Part III explores the boy's childhood, as he is brought up in isolation by a disturbed mother who psychologically and physically abuses him, and a suicidal religious father unable to protect his son.
At the very end of the movie, the link between the cop and the boy, is revealed.
My major issue with the movie is Part I, where after the cop promotion ceremony, the screen is plunged into around 25 minutes of gloomy foggy darkness of an unlit country road, with apparitions of bloodied girls and driverless cars popping up here and there. I struggled to make sense of who is whom, and what is truly happening and why, as the scenes abruptly shift from long shots to close-ups, from scene to scene, from angle to angle. Moreover, the darkness made it difficult to easily pinpoint the film's subgenre; i.e. Killer slasher horror vs supernatural horror. Better editing could have helped. The moviegoer shouldn't be asked to struggle with determining a subgenre.
It is only when Part I comes to a close that the screen lightens up and the moviegoer can sit back and follow events with minimal confusion.