Spooktacular

Finally, my pirate friends have provided a copy of “Patayin sa Shokot si Remington, Zombadings, Part I”.

I have eagerly awaited for this film because of the media hype this “indi” film has garnered.  For an indi-film, the accolades and promotion it received was similar to what a major-production outfit received.

After an enjoyable hour and a half of watching this film, I would agree with the critics that this indi-film both has commercial values and social awareness issues embedded by the director.

The “commercial values” helped this film move the box-office receipts no doubt.  First is the use of sub-titles to translate “gay-speak” language into English was definitely innovative.  Second, the use of “Big-Star” names to quickly identify the characters in cameo roles kept the audience guessing as to who will play what, till the end of the movie. Third, the use of music and dance numbers through out the film provided the much needed comic relief.  Fourth, the portrayal of “gay” zombies as part of the vengeance-squad was a touch of genius.  Hollywood and British films are making a killing every time they use zombies as a back-drop for their movies. The recent success of the tv-series “The Walking Dead” is a testimony to the continuing fascination of the people to the zombie phenomenon.  The commercial values put enough “economic-blood” into this movie in order for the common people to go out at watch this at the cinemas. Pretty soon, this indi-film maker would eventually find his way into the commercial main-stream.

There were a number of  “social awareness” issues that this film put forward in a subtle way. It gently took “stabs” in the ills of our present-day society while in the guise of comedy.  First stab – the culture of the Pinoys to prefer drinking the whole day rather than go to work.  Second stab – the lack of training and budget of the Police Force to perform their work decently and at par with the world’s standards. Third Stab – the apparent discrimination of gays/lesbians in the workplace and the community.  The gays were stereotyped as loud, cross-dressing bitches who could only work at “carinderias”and beauty parlors.  Fourth Stab – the corruption of Politicians who in this movie asked all the beauty contestants for a sexual-favor if they wanted to win the beauty contest or get “financial assistance” from the congressman.  Fifth Stab – the proliferation of  “gay sex” as an emerging source of income from the underprivileged. Yep, don’t close your eyes, commercial sex isn’t all about women folks, men do it too, because 80% of our population are below the poverty line; the men will eventually bite the bullet and get fucked from behind.. Let’s get real, commercial-sex will continue to thrive unless government shapes up our economics.

The movie tries to strike a balance between box-office appeal while tickling our social-awareness.  There are also good morals or lessons in the story that the director allowed the characters to simply voice it out in the film.  The first lesson is about love and strength of the family ties. Yep, in this film you would see and hear how the village macho-guy trades places with his gay son in order to save the latter from a curse. The second lesson is about  acceptance of a person not withstanding the person’s sexual orientation.  If I may paraphrase, …”it is better to be gay if being gay means fighting for what you believe is right”.  Being gay never meant to have a “defeatist”attitude. On the contrary a gay person should always be in the “thick of battle” to ascertain that his basic rights will never get trampled  by anyone.

Oh by the way, I lruly adored the scene where the female cop, played by Janice De Belen, emptied her 9mm bullets from her Beretta service-pistol on the forehead of the Zombading beauty-contestant that the corrupt politico danced with.