Name: Paul Samuel S.

Lacap College- CAS

Submitted on March 14, 2013 HUM 3-X

The Road: A Different Kind of Philippine Horror Thesis Statement: Unlike most Filipino horror films that satisfies its audience through surprises and scary characters, The Road is a horror film that satisfies its viewers through its great atmosphere and unique way of narrative Asia has been well known for its horror films, from Japans insert movie title here, to Thailands insert movie title here, however Filipino horror movies seems to be not noticed by the world. Why is that? Whats wrong with the horror films of the Filipinos? What makes Filipino horror movies not much appreciated in the world? Is it the limited budget? Is it not scary enough? From my observations, the problems of Filipino horror films are not the budget or the scares. To answer the questions, here is an illustration, imagine person walking and give him a strange item, at first he will have no reaction. However tell a story about that item and he will now look that item in a different perspective. Try to tell him that a man said that item is curse while smiling and there is one thing that will surely happen, that man will just laugh at you assuming that you are joking, but tell him a great story about why that item is curse and he will be scared to even hold that item. See the logic? Same item, different story, different effects, and thats the problem why most Filipino horror films are not known, most mainstream horror films focus too much on the scares and surprises while sacrificing its narrative. The problems of narrative are as follows, predictability and no originality. An example of a film with these problems is TxT. The narrative of Txt, no matter how much you sugar coat it, is just about a jealous boyfriend who kills the main characters one by one because of, obviously, jealousy. The

same pattern is also applied to Sundo, the first part of the film was executed well, great atmosphere, a good sense of mystery due to the strange powers of the protagonist, but at the second part the narrative was just about a group of people being chased by a ghost. There is a twist at the end but it did not give justice to the linearity of the story. Aside from the clich narratives the second problem of mainstream Filipino horror films is originality. Take Sanib for example, even by looking at the title alone a person can see that this just an attempt to make a Filipino version of the famous 1973 The Exorcist film by William Friedkin. Going to the film, it can be observed that a lot of ideas were just picked up from the famous Western film, like a girl being possessed by an evil spirit or a demon, the way she was tied to her bed, and the priests exorcising her. Going to the narrative, again, it was not executed well; the primary reason is that it fails to build up the tension which is very important for most horror films so that it can have an effective moment of release to the viewers. Now looking at the modern mainstream horror movies today, GMA films decided to try something new; they tried to experiment with the narrative. With this concept in mind they tried to create a horror film that did the opposite of their previous films, a film that is not centred on how a person will be scared or killed but a film that wants to tell a story to the viewers in a unique way. The very first thing that a common viewer will notice about the road is that something major has already happened. It is because at the very first part of the film, it shows a mother asking a police officer if they have found her daughters. It is because in this film, the narrative the narrative is divided into three parts, and to know fully well the story, the viewer must watch all the parts to know the full story of the road. Now heres the twist, the chronology of the narrative is in reverse. Although, the narrative is not the conventional narrative, it really complimented well the film, heres why, the film The Road, although it has

some supernatural beings, the foundation of the film is about crime and murder. If a person sees a murdered body the very first thing he/she will think is what happened? So out of curiosity that person will want to know the events that had happened before the murder, and The Road used that psychological concept to keep its viewers interested in its dark story by bringing suspense on not about whats going to happen next but on the saying what had happened here? Another thing is that it lessens the damage whenever the film is going to be predictable, because even though a viewer can predict whats going to happen next especially on the part II of the film, he/she will still be on the edge of his/her seat since his curiosity is not yet satisfied. The viewer will keep wondering, why? What lead the killer to be that way? It is because in the part II of the film he is already a psycho-murderer. He is torturing and killing people with no explanation whatsoever, while there are a few clues like the picture of his family but those clues are not enough to come up with a clear and concrete explanation on why he is behaving that way. Since a lot has happened with no explanation is given, the audience will demand it and that demanding contributes to the successfulness of Part III, where everything will be explained about the great mystery of the killings. So the viewer, while watching the film, must watch this film intellectually by keeping in mind the previous part that he had watch and making sense out of it to the part he is currently watching, keeping his interest not on the supernatural characters but on dark horror story that The Road has to offer. Another thing to look about on the Road is its script, remove all the script and words of the actors and the film will still make sense because the film does not heavily rely on verbal messages to deliver its story line, but on its mise en scenes. An example is the looks of the supernatural beings in the film. Each being has a unique look that is explained as the story on The Road goes deeper and deeper leading to the end of the film where

Mise en scene played the greatest factor in revealing something major in the film the hidden agenda of the policeman. Mise en scenes also played a large factor on making the audience critically analyse the film on the supernatural beings. It challenges the audience to which is the truth or not, which is reality and which is the supernatural on the film because some scenes contradict each other. On latter parts of the film, when a person is killed, the person still appears on later scenes, but unlike mainstream horror ghosts, they dont look like ghosts but they look like normal people, which make the viewer question, who killed who? Who is the ghost? Did she really escape or not? Another perfect example is after part II, when the policeman rescued a victim (part I victim), when she asked what happened, the girls answer confused me, they were just asking for water, but that event happened on part II, and the one asked for water is the part II victim not the part I, and given the time interval between the parts, its impossible that she still has the same state of body. It later turned out that the girl was just being possessed, but theres no specific happening or statement, that she is really possess, just clues, given the contradicting events, the viewer is required to make sense out of it. This technique not only sparks the audience attention mentally but also helps in lessening the films predictability by showing what the opposite of what the audience have expected. Going to cinematography, the road uses various techniques that helps build up the tension and atmosphere and it feels like youre part of the film, like when the camera is shaking when the car is moving, its slow rotations to completely emphasize and capture the emotions of the characters and for the audience to always be aware of the things inside and outside of the frame of each shot it somehow and it gives that 3d effect to the film that .. and it also builds up the tension as for every rotation something might appear. The greatest thing about the camera movment, it plays with the viewer, every movement has a meaning, it

hides things to keep the mystery, there was even one time that everything was up-side down with fast fade-in and fade outs, which actually represents a first person view of a lady waking up on a bed with his head hanging after being knocked unconscious. It also Aside from camera

movements, it also uses depth of fields to give hints to the viewers about the story of the film, like for example in the beginning of part II, everything was blurred except for a piece of paper, a certificate of Title, of what? Then an unnamed person was shown in the frame. This shows that the film needs the viewers to analyse even the most common props in the film. Also the shot scale really help in emphasizing the things helps in giving the film a great atmosphere, like the extreme long shot of controversial road, shows isolation, once a person is in he/she is isolated from society and the close up shots when a character is struggling. Going away from cinematography, one thing thats also unique about the road is its setting. Although the setting is only one place, the different time frames make it a different world every time. From the suspense horror of the road in part I, the dark, mystery, isolation of the abandoned house in part II, to the psychological theme in the house of part III, each props used for the setting compliments well with the time period and theme. This adds color to the atmosphere of the film. While each world is unique there are some things that help in connecting the three time periods, one is the house, from part III to the epilogue, the effects of time can be seen on the house. A symbolic meaning can also observed from the time the day of the first shot on the road per time frame. The first part is at night, the second part is in the afternoon, while the third part is morning. Given how society looks at the different time of the day, morning is first, afternoon is second, and evening is third, in terms of time, and the same logic can also be observed from the 3 parts of the narrative, third (morning) is first, second (afternoon) is second, and first is (evening) third.

Lastly, one of the greatest techniques which to the atmosphere of the Road is the lighting. It is well executed in the film. An example is the perfect blend of sunlight in the afternoon shows the beauty of the setting (the road) while signifying the omen of isolation at the same time. Another is the perfect blend of darkness, especially in the house, it gives the house that abandoned feeling, the darkness is also use to hide the unknown, especially during the car driving scenes, where they only need to use the headlights of the car to make the film as realistic as it can be. The lighting also gives the characters some unique aura like the little girl in part III stretching her hand as Sunlight blooms on her, which can signify freedom. All in all, the lightings is one of the primary reason why the film is not bland. All in all, The Road provided a new experience on how Filipinos enjoy horror films, and this new experience is proven to be very effective. It even came to a point that it was shown publicly in the US. So why is this film given high reception unlike most mainstream movies like TxT, Sundo, and Sanib? The first reason is originality; the story of the road is not based on some successful foreign film or any superstitious belief which makes it less predictable. The second one is a good narrative, in my opinion, narrative must be the foundation of all the films, and The Road just did that, they sacrifice most of the shock and surprise factor of mainstream horror films, and focused more on the narrative that will keep you wanting to dive more to the dark story of the film. But even though a lot of the shock factor is removed, it forgives itself with a great atmosphere that compliments really well to what is happening in the scene. All inall, The Road, given the high reception, opened the eyes of the Filipino in this kind of horror films; it showed them on what horror films are lacking and what they should be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcist_(film)