Have Yourself A Scary Little Christmas

by Ria Limjap

 

"If there’s anything worth catching at the Metro Manila Film Fest which opens on Christmas Day, I"

"would start with Shake, Rattle & Roll 13 because this year is really a step up for the longest running Filipino horror franchise with three young directors—all of them award-winning and critically acclaimed for their individual work. Regal Films, which has produced SRR for thirteen years, has said that this is the last instalment of the hugely popular and lucrative franchise. (Somehow, I doubt it, but if it is the last Shake, Rattle & Roll then they are going out with a bang with this year’s awesome line up.)"

 

"Jerrold Tarog claims he’s not going to do another horror film anytime soon, after his sleeper hit"

"Punerarya from SRR 12 in 2011, this year’s Aswang and his latest SRR episode Parola. That’s too bad because there isn’t a director out there who has his excellent sense of rhythm—perhaps it comes from his music background—and as we know, pacing is hugely important in a horror movie. Parola is about two best friends (lovely girls Louise de los Reyes and Kathyrn Bernardo) who visit a haunted light house where the vengeful spirits of two dead mangkukulams (Dimples Romana and Julia Clarete in really horrific Filipiniana-inspired prosthetics) start using the girls as warm bodies for Round 2 of their war against each other. Except for a slightly cheesy flashback sequence, Parola is a stylishly executed and scary at the same time—imagine a face pressing against the ceiling from where worms begin to drop—an endless battle of witches whose cycles of revenge reach from one lifetime in to the next."

 

 

(source)