When my friends wanted to have a Shake, Rattle & Roll marathon for Halloween I was excited because I never watched Shake, Rattle and Roll when I was a kid (we never watched horror films. My sister was a scaredy-cat. haha) and I was looking forward to getting scared. I did not, however, expect to get incensed at all the misogyny in them. Each woman in each segment I watched (we skipped a few) was either hysterical or horny or just plain evil. Does the horror genre really require its female victims to be idiots? Is it really scarier to feature characters who are too stupid to live? And whatever happened to the idea of intelligent horror?
[WARNING: SPOILER LADEN COMMENTS]
The Good
I am fascinated by Ishmael Bernal’s Pridyider (I). If I had a time travelling device, I’d find a way to get into the pitching room and see how they sold the idea of a horny refrigerator. Yes, a horny refrigerator. What’s even better is everything makes perfect sense. Of course, any sensible girl would avoid hanging out with boys who are only after sex (like really, guy couldn’t have been more obvious) but she’s young (and hopefully learned her lesson) so I’ll forgive her.
The OK
I’m putting Yaya (III) in my OK pile because it got me to scream twice. I have two problems though: one is that villain[-ess] lacked motivation and two, that for a supposedly protective mother, Kris Aquino’s character was more busy screaming her head off than actually protecting her baby from the evil wind. And opening your door in the middle of the night without checking who it is first? Tsk tsk tsk.
I am still torn over Nanay (III) because on one hand, I kinda like it because I think the Undin is cute. On the other hand, instead of attempting CPR on her drowned friend like any smart girl would do (I mean, you might as well try) she wails and screams “What is this slimy stuff all over you? It’s slimy! Eew, slimy!” And I do get the concept of bullying. However I don’t get the concept that every girl in her dorm spends time either bullying her or hooking up with men. Don’t they have anything better to do? Why must this so-called “smart” heroine be too timid to defend herself? Why does she let herself be abused? Filipino audiences tend to root for underdogs but really, does she have to be such a doormat? It would be nice to have a heroine strong enough to fight and say, “Stop being pathetic excuses for human beings and go get yourself a life,” you know?
The Bad
Baso (I) was just so boring. I mean, except for the prosthetics on Joel Torre, there was nothing really horrific about it. Oh maybe the fact that it features a girl who screams helplessly while two men fight over her (I get it, you both love her, but why don’t you just ask her to choose which one she likes most. Oh, I forgot, she doesn’t know how to use her brain.) It would have been a crowning moment of awesome if she just walked out and let them kill each other but what does she do? She faints. Nice.
Why is it in horor films (at least these ones) they never tell you that the house you’re moving into/staying in is haunted? In real life people like to gossip and you can easily find out if your dream house is a hot spot for ghostly activity. Just saying. Multo (II) features a honeymoon couple too busy getting busy they forget to use their brains. Yes, do put on the creepy looking ring in the creepy looking room and get possessed by a mad abortionist doctor. All the time the wife was trying to stop her possessed husband from killing her, I kept thinking: girl, you have lovely sharp nails why don’t you use it on his face? Or kick his groin or something? Apparently the will to survive is not that strong.
I would have loved Aswang (II) if the heroine wasn’t TSTL. Really, I was rooting for her after she successfully fools her aswang-friend to unconsciousness and fools the aswang-family into thinking her aswang-friend was her, but instead of running away immediately, she stays and watches as they perform the ritual! So instead of getting more time to escape, she gets chased into a corner (of consecrated ground) where she finds a weapon (a crucifix. I wonder what they used to ward away aswangs before christianity? anyway) which helps her escape to her friends camping by. Again, instead of getting into the car and driving as fast as possible away from the place, they pack up first and TSTL GIRL drops her only weapon to carry mats and chairs and other stuff. Really really stupid. What’s more stupid is that they manage to somehow escape (with a few more stupid incidents in between) and kill the head aswang. And then there’s this dream sequence where they die (oh why oh why didn’t they die?) and she wakes up and warns the guy who basically tells her not to worry her pretty little head and go back to sleep (oh why oh why didn’t they just die?)
Guro (IV) makes me mad because the heroine (ugh, is there another word I can use?) instead of helping her friend being murdered by her Jekyll/Hyde teacher just hides and watches. Hello? You’re in a chem lab. There are lots of stuff you can throw at his head to distract him. Or as soon as he turned into a monster you could have run for help immediately. But no, she just watches her friend being killed. With friends like her who needs a heartthrob teacher who for no apparent reason drinks potions at 4:30 in the afternoon to make himself into a big scary monster (really man, if you were into kinky stuff like that, wouldn’t it be better if you did it at night without the danger of lovestruck teenagers barging into your office and trying to seduce you? no?) Of course our un-heroine gets saved in the end by a juvenile delinquent knight with shiny hair. Typical.
The Really, Really Ugly
Kulam (II) features an old witch, a slutty nurse, and an innocent girl. I could stop there but it gets worse. The first one’s in love with the guy, though the why is unfathomable (he’s played by Joey Marquez. why on earth would you believe anyone who looks and acts like Joey Marquez?) The second’s in lust with the same guy (again, the why is fuzzy. I mean, his whole body is in a cast. What satisfaction can you get from that?) and the last one’s grateful because the guy saved her from a fate worse than death AKA getting raped (which is why his whole body is in a cast anyway.) The latter two spend the night trying to save worthless guy from the wrath of the bitter old witch who wants revenge after she realizes the said guy is worthless. Could it be any more stereotypical?
So there it is. My night with Shake, Rattle and Roll. The lesson I learned? Stay away from Shake, Rattle and Roll else get ready for an outburst of feminist outrage.
For a bonus, here’s a short horror film my friends and I made in college called Comfort Zone featuring no characters too stupid to live:
asteg ayn! actually i just learned that term that night – - too stupid to live . haha. i can’t bring myself to write a decent review about this in any case. but ‘pridyider’ is still the best ever!
this was more of a rant than a review. haha. kasi…kasi ang stupid lang. nakakainis.
pridyider really still creeps me out. It kept from the fridge when I was a kid especially at night!
HAHAHHA. Too stupid to live. Hay.
I wonder bakit natakot kami dati. Siguro dahil bata pa kami? It’s not advisable to watch stupid horror films at this age. LOL.
haha. i remember being soooo scared of the frighteners eh that was a comedy. owel. mas madali kasi tayo naloloko pag bata tayo
WATCH MO SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL FROM PART 5 TO 9…MADAMI KA PANG MAPUPUNA DUN HEHEHEHEHE! FOR ME I LIKE THE MANANANGGAL EPISODE SA PART 1 PATI NA DIN YUNG PRIDYIDER…..
AND GALIT KA ATA KE MANILYN REYNES…….PANSIN KO LANG….PERO WAG KA, SI MANILYN ANG LUCKY CHARM NILA SA SRR….AS IN PAG KASAMA SI MANILYN IN ANY EPISODES…KUMIKITA ANG MOVIE……LIKE IN PART 8 NA NILAGAY SI MANILYN SA LRT EPISODE…AYUN KUMITA ULI SA TAKILYA ANG SRR!!!
Noooo, no more Shake Rattle and Roll for me. I learned my lesson. I am staying away. (Except from Pridyider, of course)
And no, I’m not angry with Manilyn Reynes as a person. I am, however, absolutely angry at all the writers, producers, directors who made the characters she plays such idiots. Why couldn’t they make more intelligent horror stories? That’s just my problem with Shake Rattle and Roll.
As for the box office, well, that’s a different story.
yah…i noticed it also…aminin mo na maygalit ka kay MANILYN REYNES…for me…naman just my opinion…asan ang artistic value ng “PRIDYEDER” epis??? i remember when i was a kid, walang dating sa akin yang epis na yan…para nga syang BOLD FILM…e nung time ata nyan sinabi ni janice nung nabuntisan sya ni aga e”I did it with the help of god”baka didit with the FRIDGE…hehehehe…ayun nung dimating yung sequel kay MANILYN REYNES “ASWANG” gives me the creep and chills…kaya kami ng famoly ko na paranoid na pumunta ng unknown far place…baka kasi my ASWANG…and to abet, tma ka…I TESTIFY pafwala si MANE sa shake FLOP…nasanay na ang TAO na andayn si MANE…sa SRR8 biro mo walang ganung dialogue si MANE puro takot…SAN KAPA??? ikaw nga matakot ka ng walang kinatatakutan…FOR ME ang ayaw ko lang na epis ng shake e yung kapatid sya ni “TOM TAUS” ang OA ng ROLE ni mane dun SPOILED BRAT…that’s the WORST FOR ME…sa SRR10 wala si ATE MANE NASA “ONE NIGHT ONLY SYA…doing LESBIAN ROLE…kaya di muna me nood ng SEQUEL 10…
please learn to distinguish the difference between “Manilyn Reynes is stupid” and “Manilyn Reynes’s character in so and so is stupid.” I am not criticizing Manilyn Reynes herself. I am criticizing the characters that she played in SRR.
again, not interested in the box office value of SRR. My problem with SRR comes from a feminist point of view because the female characters are stereotypically stupid/helpless and the writing is lazy. Horror must be intelligent to truly horrify. Which is why i like I like Pridyider.
to bitter grace.
wag ka ng magsama pa dyan ng feminist elkavu mo…remember ATE MANILYN REYNES is the queen of horror movies…proven na yan…think about this…yung problema mong character na pino portray ni mane i think kaya nga pinapanood yan ate mane handle the roll that people will absolutely can relate. you said walang kwenta ang roles nya???come to think of it…bakit pinapanood pag si mane???can’t you see people are spoken here that mane is good in terms of horror film…and nga pala i heard mane won an award di nga lang sa shake sequel i think sa film na one night only…so it means magaling talaga ang aktress na yan…ewan ba bakit mailap ang award sa kanya…
april, I am not attacking Manilyn Reynes’s acting skills. She did well with the material given to her. For me, it’s not a question of whether people can relate to her character. It is however a question of “feminist eklavu” because as long as there aren’t any intelligent, brave and resourceful female characters in Filipino horror films then the genre becomes flimsy and uninteresting and it would be a shame if we let it remain so.
tama na yan magaling talaga si manilyn reynes pagdating sa horror movies proven and trusted na yan.. sa ang pinaka show sa qtv-11 ang nag number one dun sa pinaka patok na artistang pang horror ay si manilyn reynes anu sinabi ni kris aquino dun ha
bitter grace,
feminist kamo???yung kay janice na ni rape sya ng “pridyeder” do you think it’s an intelligent act and role??? my gosh come to think of it…bumababa na ata ang mural ng mga feminista…paki review nga ulit yung film na yan…unlike ate MANILYN REYNES kicking and slaying the butt of the monster in a town…yan ang feminista…girl can survive and intellegent even at the worst and difficult times.yan ang feminista may moral…even dun sa shake 8 mane did a great job protecting her sickling son…yaw ko nang i elaborate pa ms. mane is everybody’s horror queen. ako ayaw kong magparape sa fridge, baka ikaw “TRY MO”
april, please review your idea of feminism.
haha ang funny.
bittergrace,
i’m a feminist myself, medyo kulang ang idea mo about feminism…kaya stop pretending. okay if you think that “PREDYIDER” scene is okay…fine..We think that ATE MANILYN REYNES was great, and did well in every srr sequel…let’s leave at that…okay???
yes, I get it, you like Manilyn Reynes, good for you. If you think you’re a feminist, good for you. But nothing will convince me that her characters in Aswang/Guro/Nanay, who survive through sheer luck rather than intelligent action are in any way role models for women. neither is Janice’s character in Pridyider, mind you, but the film works in a different level because it’s a morality tale about the consequences of sexuality. These are my opinions and I am not “pretending” to have them.
bitter grace
wow…alam mo yung mga characters ni ms.manilyn reynes ha!!! i was shocked and surprised…paki bangit nga yung character ni janice de belen sa “pridyer” di ko kasi maalala e!!! i wish maalala mo!!!”morality tale about the consequences of sexuality” ba gusto mo??? why don’t you watch baby china, manila by night,himala, tagos ng dugo, karnal, broken marriage,sister stella l. and many more… that will help you to find the real meaning of what you are talking here in your site…nga pala you can also watch “DED NA SI LOLO” yan ang bet ng PILIPINAS for this coming oscar awards for “BEST FOREIGN FILM” ms.manilyn reynes is also included in the cast…
Your argument is invalid.