Fast becoming the Filipino "Friday the 13th" in terms of longevity, Regal Films' horror-comedy franchise "Shake, Rattle and Roll" hits the big screen anew this season with its 8th installment. As usual, three episodes with three different set of filmmakers and actors fill up the film's entire running time and the resulting imbalance of the end product either works for or against it. As with previous installments, there will be one that stands out; but along with it, the viewer has to sit through the two that don't. Or vice versa.
Easily the weakest of the three, Rahyan Carlos' "13th Floor" opens the proceedings with a tale of party organizers called to the job one day at a condominium that has a tragic past. Headed by Sonny (Bearwin Meily), the group is tasked to prepare a birthday party for 11-year old Alex (Jolina Reyes). But something's not right. Alex's visitors seem extremely apathetic and really weird things start happening.
How much this episode works for you depends entirely on how well you can take it at face value. As campy horror films go, "13th Floor" functions on the same level as the 1995 Japanese family horror film "Haunted School (Gakko no Kaidan)" only with less verve and a more sloppy direction. Also, if the names of Meily and Keanna Reeves on the credit sequence don't tip you off on its exaggerated tongue-in-cheek nature, it might take you a while to get your bearings on and go with the flow.
As he has shown in "Pamahiin," restraint is far from Carlos' mind. It's a similar case here. Fortunately, his tendency to overindulge on scares and skimp on subtlety is cushioned by the fact that nothing here is to be taken seriously. Besides, at a third less than the overall length of "Pamahiin," this episode barely avoids on overstaying its qualified welcome.
The next episode - "Yaya" - is helmed by Topel Lee, who also directed "Dilim," an entry to last year's Cinema One Originals Film Festival. Treading virtually the same theme, "Yaya" stars the impressive "Star Circle Quest Grand Kid Questor" Nash Aguas as a young boy who believes his new nanny is an "aswang" - a Filipino mythical creature that goes bump at night and eats human innards for dinner.
With crisp storytelling, nice shots, and a few genuinely terrifying moments, Lee's episode delivers the best among the bunch. He's also aided by Aguas' strong performance who, at a young age, surprisingly holds himself on screen better than some actors more than double his age. Iza Calzado as the nanny barely exhibits the creepy ambiguity required of her but that's just maybe because I'm so used to her playing characters on the opposite side of the spectrum.
As if the fuss of rush hour and a service sometimes badly in need of a TQM seminar aren't enough, the LRT gets further bad rep with Mike Tuviera's "LRT," the installment's third and final episode. Here, it's business as usual as a handful of commuters take the last train going home late one night. But soon, something's amiss because the train doesn't stop at any station and no one seems to care that there are people still aboard. Eventually locked inside the main terminal of LRT-2 is Keempee de Leon as the de facto leader of the group, Manilyn Reynes as a mother of an asthmatic child, Eugene Domingo as a religious fanatic, Cassandra Ponti as a nurse every patient would die for, Mico Palanca as a hotheaded yuppie, and a few other younger faces. And they all must stick together if they all want to live because something's lurking in the shadows that wants to eat their hearts out. Literally.
What starts like a promising narrative dives to something more like "Jeepers Creepers," which is not necessarily a bad thing. The thing is, since the whole plot is just a part of an entirety, it's heavily truncated. As such, characters are barely fleshed out (not that it matters in films like this) and there's barely someone to root for. Honestly, I didn't care who lived and who got offed. There's an attempt to humanize the characters of De Leon and Reynes towards the end but it's so awkwardly placed I'm not sure whether to take it seriously. Also, because it's a PG-13 film, gore is severely limited. (Awww, and I was getting in the mood for some "LRT Chainsaw Massacre.")
In the end, "Shake, Rattle and Roll 8" in its entirety is a film that will appeal to those looking for nothing more than unabashed escapism. Personally, there's some fun to be had here, although the best part is stacked in the middle so it might be better off on DVD to be able to skip chapters. Besides, HD digital looks better there.
