But the actors playing his parents are even better: Janice de Belen as the town’s female police chief who has to solve the crimes involving a serial killer of gays and John Regala as the panciteria owner who turns gay in the end for the sake of his son. They both deserve to get nominations as supporting performers, along with Roderick Paulate. Eugene Domingo is, as usual, competent, but we cannot understand the value of her role as Lauren Young’s weird widowed mom who goes around in rollerskates. Another role we can’t comprehend is that of Mailes Canapi as Janice’s even weirder assistant. We thought her role will arc and amount into something surprising or substantial in the end, but no such thing happens. The setting is also good, scenic Lucban town at the time of the Pahiyas festival.
Many gay reviewers see this as a pro-gay film, but if you’d take a closer look, it actually delivers some negative messages about gays. First, it implies that being gay is a curse and, to banish the curse, your being gay should be transferred to someone else. Roderick as a gay character not only puts a curse on kids (pati bata, pinatulan) but also engages in the occult with a tinge of Satanism as seen in the fantasy sequences. And not only gays indulge in satanic act here but they also turn into gross-looking zombies who kill people.
Even Daniel Fernando as John Regala’s friend turns out to be a closet gay and and a gay murderer who is actually the serial killer of other gays like himself as he turned out to have the hots for his friend Leandro Baldemor. In the end, Remington is saved because, let’s face it, he’s straight, not really gay but was just cursed by a gay. So how can you say this film is pro-gay when it converys nothing but negative inputs about gays? Gays are actually ridiculed and even portrayed as zombies “na mga salot sa lipunan”, so they should be killed.
