Cinco

♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Cuatro for the effort. There is a scene after the credits which serves as some sort of epilogue for the last episode, and sets the scene for the first episode. If you come in late you could start the movie with any episode since the fifth one actually serves as a prologue to the first, although the stories are not that directly related.

BRASO is relatively short, obviously just a filler. It manages to establish a creepy atmosphere thanks to the morgue setting, but this is quickly lost a few minutes into the episode. There really is nothing scary about a poorly animated face/crotch-grabbing zombie arm terrorizing teenagers while Hawak Kamay is playing in the background. And you do not play with dead bodies, that is just plain wrong.

PAA has all the good stuff: solid performance from Jodi Sta. Maria, good support from Shamaine Buencamino, a concise backstory, poetic justice, and the notion that the main character is actually just hallucinating (and not seeing ghosts) because of her foot infection. The ghost could have been creepier, but it works anyway. It is just sad that the girl has to be portrayed as "evil" and religion saves the day in the end. The kid is really just a victim here. But perhaps this is justified if everything is really just a hallucination since the images come from a guilty person's subconscious, thus the subjective bias.

MATA is not that scary, but cool because of the time loop element. Maja Salvador gives an ok performance, neither worth panning nor raving for. She seems to be Star Cinema's horror muse.

Mariel Rodriguez is a friggin' bitch in MUKHA, and she actually looks the part (she sort of resembles Maricar de Mesa here). While someone else could have done the role more convincingly, Mariel is actually not that bad. The screaming could still be improved though (sounds fake), but in general, she is ok. This is one of the boring episodes, the plot begins to drag after a scream or two.

PUSO is the comic relief of the five. It is the typical "gayuma" story given a zombie twist. The episode is funny at first, then turns a bit gory. Unfortunately, Zanjoe Marudo is not that good in scaring people, which makes the episode bland and renders it ineffective as a final "golpe de gulat".

The first episode could have been scrapped altogether if not for the connection it has with the last story, although come to think of it, that is not really necessary since the other three are not really connected with each other at all. Maybe it is just done that way to give a semblance of closure, of the story coming around full circle.