Art house independent filmmaker Brillante Mendoza leaps into the horror genre and brings us Sapi (Possession), starring Husband’s Lover’s Dennis Trillo, as well as Meryll Soriano and Baron Geisler.
The “horror” genre, in its simplest meaning, aims to scare the daylights out of the moviegoers. But
considering Sapi is a Brillante Ma
Mendoza film, expect a layer of social issues. And a dose of artsy fartsy. But, again, Sapi, labeled as a "horror movie," is first and foremost a supposedly scary movie,
which should scare both indie and
mainstream moviegoers.
Unfortunately,
there is not a single scary moment in
Sapi. Instead, it is one astonishingly confused, forced, and sloppily senseless combo of a boring exhibition.
Rival TV
networks PBC and SBN, during habagat
times, both cover a sapi story. In the country, where sapi cases are trending like selfies, the networks compete
for only one sapi case: The Ruby Case. SBN's Meryll (Soriano) and Dennis (Trillo) fail to produce a ratings-grabbing footage of the actual
possession of Ruby, so Meryll buys footage from PBC’s cameraman, Baron (Geisler).
It’s a best buy; a masterpiece of a footage: Ruby captured thrashing about and
screaming “Diablo!” So what are the odds of getting caught? One hundred
percent. Since it’s the exact same footage Baron submitted to his own network.
Their idiotic copyright infringement act—and breach of victim privacy—surprisingly
did not result in job termination, but presumably earned the wrath of the
devil. Or maybe not? Unexplained.
So, anyway, random paranormal
activities started happening to the greedy and exploitative media people. And
this is where Mendoza incorporated his horror symbols: phantom
fellatio sessions, snake coming out of the vagina, and some funny looking naked
entities inside the furniture. Since there is no pattern to the paranormal
activities, so random and oddly out of place, there is zero sense of
dread, anticipation, and fear.
What about the supposed social issue? Well, the glaring issue here, the bigger problem with these media people in the movie, is
not their unethical ways, but their serious lack of personality and emotion.
After the characters
experience these weird, unexplained “horrors,” none of them seemed bothered by them—or
even curious as to why disturbing stuff are happening to them. I mean, if an incubus raped me last night and
I gave a bloody birth to a huge snake, I don’t think I would be able to speak for
the rest of my life. But Meryll just went on with her daily business, fresh and
unperturbed, and the barely speaking Dennis continued to look lost and clueless.
And throughout
the film, there’s this disembodied parseltongue whispering to the blank-faced
characters, that you’d wonder whether it’s the film’s soundtrack, or hearing
demonic whispering is a normal part of their daily lives.
The movie is
filtered to a colorless scheme, like the plot itself, with flashes of a fake stormy sky, which all the more takes away the rawness and the realism the movie is aiming for.
I am a huge fan
of Brillante Mendoza, but what possessed
him and his writers (all five of them) to create this catastrophically loose movie? It's as if Mendoza was possessed by the maintream devil, and in the process of self-exorcism, has produced this movie.
0 out of 5 stars
Opens November 6, 2013 in Philippine cinemas
This review is cross-published in InterAksyon.com.
Opens November 6, 2013 in Philippine cinemas
This review is cross-published in InterAksyon.com.
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