The horror of it all

In Carlo Ledesma’s Sunod, nothing is as it seems. An office supervisor (JC Santos) appears to be a sympathetic soul, but is in fact a lecher. A jaded “professional trainee” (Kate Alejandrino) turns out to be compassionate. The female boss from hell (Mylene Dizon) has a justification for being irascible. An innocent child (Rhed Bustamante) and her kindly mother (Susan Africa) are actually evil incarnate. Even an old building where most of the action takes place, although seemingly modernized for the digital age, hides an ancient secret.

Carmina Villarroel is Olivia, a middle-aged mother whose only child Annelle (Kristal Brimner) is in the hospital, suffering from congenital heart disease. Running low on funds, she takes a job as a call center agent, landing one despite her age due to a relentlessness borne of desperation. Her office is a creaky, abandoned former hospital where only one of the floors has been rehabilitated. It is owned by the old-rich Liboros, who also own Liboro Global Outsourcing.

Being the oldest employee, Olivia is quickly made to feel at home by Lance (JC), her supervisor, and Mimi (Kate), with whom she becomes fact friends. Although initially skeptical of Olivia’s activities, her boss Karen (Mylene) eventually sees her potentials and promotes her.

One day, leaving from work late, an apparent elevator malfunction takes her to the basement, instead of the lobby. There she meets a child, Nerisa (Rhed), who tells her that she has been trying to leave the building. Olivia gently guides her outside, only for the kid to mysteriously disappear. Right after, she gets word from the hospital that her daughter is having a seizure. Rushing to her side, Olivia was elated to know that not only had the seizure ended, but her daughter’s innate illness had inexplicably disappeared. The doctors advised her that they could both go home.

Another problem, however, presents itself: How to settle the humongous bill. Failing to get a cash advance from the company, Lance volunteers to pay for the bill, but demands sexual favors from Olivia in return. She rebuffs him but keeps his check, anyway.

Mother and daughter are glad to be home, but Annelle begins to act strangely. She becomes morose, withdrawn and starts talking to an “imaginary friend.” In time, it becomes manifest that Annelle has been possessed by the spirit of Nerisa, the child that Olivia met at the basement, and who has been dead for a long time. Olivia’s desire to rid her child of this evil influence and save Annelle from this new threat to her existence when Nerisa’s spirit begins to look for her own mother Perla (Africa), is the impetus that drives the movie to its frenetic and intense ending.

Very well-acted all throughout, Sunod is an eminently watchable horror flick. The writing is tight — with no major narrative loose ends — and the editing shows excellent fit and finish. At a little over two hours, the pace rarely sags, and superfluity is mostly done away with. There are no characters that are not needed for the development of the story, no scenes out of place. Carmina gives a virtuoso performance as a mother who will stop at nothing to protect her child. The movie is ably reinforced by a talented cast that delivered committed acting over and above the usual dished out by a supporting cast, thus proving the aphorism that there are no small roles when played by good actors. Special mention must be made of Kristal, who essayed her role with maturity well beyond her years, and Freddie Webb, as the ailing Liboro family patriarch. Indeed, the old cager can still do it, in his brief appearance adding generously to the eeriness already pervading the film.

The film’s one failing is that it is partly derivative in mood and visuals: Lee Cronin’s A Hole in the Ground (2019) and 2015’s The Forest immediately come to mind. But to its credit, the director wisely chose to stay away from the typical jump scares and histrionics that characterize local thrillers. Instead, he relies on a slow, steady build-up of suspense for the scary moments.  

One symbolism that recurs in the story is that of elevators. It was an elevator that brought Olivia to her fateful encounter with Nerisa; it was an elevator that brought Lance to his gory end, and it was in an elevator where the final, chilling scene of the movie took place. Juxtaposed with the representation of the umbilical cord as both a physical means of birth and continuity — both for the pure maternal love between Olivia and Annelle, and the twisted and malevolent bond between Nerisa and Perla — and the circle becomes complete. Brilliant!

Although not groundbreaking in the mold of Celso Ad. Castillo’s Patayin Sa Sindak Si Barbara (1974) or as audacious as Aurora (2018), Sunod is a very good, extremely well-crafted horror offering that will not disappoint its audience. A fine festival film, the truly scary part is that it will lose out in the box office to cliched comedies that do nothing to elevate the tastes of the Filipino film viewers. Now that is the horror of it all.