Centerstage Production brought in Siquijor Mystic Island In an attempt to get a into the wave of Asian Horror already being populated by countries such as Korea, Japan, Thailand, and China. I must say there is the effort laid in this movie, although tailored to Filipino viewers, the more it progress the more you would think and say “This looks familiar”.
Plot
It starts out with Xavier Adriano (Ian Veneracion) the man behind a popular afternoon TV show “Hilakbot” a reenactment series tackling the day to day encounter of people who witness or have knowledge of paranormal activities. Albeit its high ratings, GBS network want to move it to primetime slot and ask him to come up with a better concept. He accepts and decided to shoot in a place called Siquijor.
However he is not helming the show on his own, the network assigned Doreen as the executive producer. With her reputation of cultivating great shows, the two will have to work together. They are also former lovers who separated with an unresolved issues.
Having the hand in the creative decision, she also replaced the crew cameraman. This infuriate Xavier even further. His present girlfriend and the shows host, Alex tries to calm him down and encourage him just work together. With the rest of the team ready, they travel to the island.
While staying there, nothing unusual happens. With deadliness looming, Xavier went back to his old ways of reenacting an event. When they all went back to Manila- strange things start to happen to each of them one by one. Dismissing it as a cursed, our protagonist investigate what is really happening. The more he digs deeper, the more the mystery builds up. Will he be able to redeem himself and the rest of the crew or will it be too late?
My Review
“Siquijor Mystic Island” has a very interesting premise, there are elements here that are purely based on Filipino superstitions like witchcraft cursing and hexing. Accroding to some report, this is a place that is mysterious in real life, it is located in the south of the country that locals really tried to avoid but hold an enchanting beauty of its own when tourist first laid their eyes on.
There are mentions of the existence of famous Philippine folklore creatures like Aswang and Tikbalang, but here lies the main flaws. It did not go in to detail in describing as to why were the entire TV crew got cursed. Despite being labeled as Horror, it is not particular gory. To be honest I could count some gruesome scene and the exorbitant puking parts is utterly disgusting but were used in a very stomach churning way. However, with too many filler slow pacing scenes, the approach did not actually work and it feels as if you are in roller coaster ride.
To some degree it tried to be original but actually the concept is something that have been used before . The overly used long haired lady in white ghost seen in the opening credit and the screeching voice talking on the cellphone are the most memorable point and unfortunately I find them disappointing. With “Ringu” and “Phone” influence in mind, I wonder if the director is targeting audience new to Asian horror.
The actors and actresses tries their part very hard, but there is an obvious indication that memorizing their part of the script is more of a concern than coming out of them naturally. They are so detached that there is no blend of chemistry among the characters
On the brighter side the film major strength lies in the creepiness factor, the filmmaker put a lot of attention to ensuring that viewers gets plenty of chills every now and then.
Overall, the movie is not something that would stuck in your mind after few days, as a side note you will find yourself hanging with its very shallow climatic ending. However it bodes well for the Filipinos as they could relate to it in a sense. Compared to another CP released “Kinatay” it lacks the polished work needed to rake up scares to die-hard fan of horror movies.
Trailer:
[flv:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-IWU4X1pw4 275 200]
Siquijor: Mystic Island was directed by Mark Philipp Espina. and co-written by Adolfo Alix Jr. Starring Angel Aquino, Assunta de Rossi, Ian Veneracion and Yul Servo. It was released in March 14, 2007
