“Motel Acacia,” Bradley Liew’s sophomore film, attempts to speak volumes in the current state of the world beyond its horror genre.
The upcoming film from “Singing in Graveyards” director Liew will have an international cast that includes Agot Isidro, JC Santos, Will Jaymes. Talia Zucker, Jan Bijvoet, Nicholas Saputra, Bront Palarae, and Vithaya Pansringarm.
(From left to right) Will Jaymes, Talia Zucker, Agot Isidro, Bradley Liew, Jan Bijvoet, Nicholas Saputra, Bront Palarae, and Vithaya Pansringarm / Photo by Krissy Aguilar /INQUIRER.net
The film tells the tale of a father (Bijvoet) who is seeking to prepare his son (Santos) to take over a motel with a bed, haunted with the spirit of a Filipino tree demon, that eats men and impregnates women.
“Besides the mythological part of the film or the horror elements of the film, it’s also really about the themes we wanted to talk about,” Liew said during the movie’s media conference on Tuesday at Quezon City.
The film, he said, talks of “the present state of the world that we’re living in, how we become desensitized to killing, how we’ve got this big immigration issue across the world.”
Liew added how “the horror element, the horror genre, in the way of storytelling is just medium to say what we really want to say and to invoke questions to the people watching this film.”
Meanwhile, Bijvoet pointed out how the film’s relevance, saying “I think this is a really really special story to be told cause I think Bradley have some kind of image on how it could be in the future.”
“What is more scary, the supernatural or the world we are living now? That’s the statement,” Isidro added.
The screenplay was co-written by Liew and producer Bianca Balbuena who has been awarded with Asia Pacific Screen Awards FIAPF Achievement in Film and Asian Film Commissions AFCnet’s Producer of the Year.
The film, targeting a 2019 release, is produced by Philippines’ Epicmedia and Singapore’s Potocol.
It also includes other companies in its production like Black Sheep (Philippines), Mandarin Vision (Taiwan), White Light Post (Thailand), Studio Virc (Slovenia), Nukleus Films (Croatia) and Tier Pictures (Singapore). /muf