(We are running this guide to help moviegoers plan their holiday cinema tour. The 40th Metro Manila Film Festival runs from Dec. 25 to Jan. 7, 2015.)
Kubot: The Aswang Chronicles
LOTLOT de Leon (left) and Joey Marquez
Directed by Erik Matti; stars Dingdong Dantes, Elizabeth Oropesa, Isabelle Daza, KC Montero, Lotlot de Leon, Bogart the Explorer, Julie Anne San Jose, Abra, Ramon Bautista, Joey Marquez, Hanna Ledesma
Fleeing a sleepy barrio after the massacre of the aswangs called tiktik, the original film’s lead characters were ambushed by enemies. Two years after this tragic incident, the aswang slayer has to defend himself against the onslaught of the Kubot, a clan of long-haired female monsters that are the tiktiks’ wives. While the first film was shot in a studio, with actors performing in front of a green screen, this sequel was filmed in various locations—a mountaintop, a quarry and Chinatown. Matti recalls that the action sequences were challenging to shoot. “We had to bring in a team of Chinese stuntmen for scenes that required highwire stunts,” he recounts. David Yu, head of the special effects department, relates that “digital prosthetics” was employed to transform actors into flesh-eating creatures. Bayani San Diego Jr.