The third episode, “Rain Rain Go Away”, is from the director-actress team of Chris Martinez and Eugene Domingo whose “Gunaw” was the best episode in “Valentine Girls”. Maybe the’re better off doing comedies. Here, they go for drama but sorry to say that the result is not as impressive. The main drawback here is the element that we often point out in horror films: the main protagonists are not sympathetic enough and the ghosts just want vengeance from them for a misdeed.
Eugene and Jay Manalo are a married couple who owns a plastic factory where kid workers died during the Ondoy. The children now haunt them, and for a good reason. The scenes where a character drowns inside a flooded car and another inside an inundated elevator are superbly staged, but they’re just getting the comeuppance that they deserve. Eugene delivers a solid performance as the beleaguered heroine. She doesn’t make us laugh here and shows she can also drama persuasively, but we don’t think the material is the right one for her.
In “Parola”, two girls who happen to be best friends (Kathryn Bernardo and Louise de los Reyes) defy warnings and go up inside an old lighthouse while on a field trip. They fell into the ground from its top but miraculously do not suffer any injury, where as the young man who tried to rescue them (Hiro Magalona) died from broken bones. Soon, they are being haunted by two mangkukulams (Dimples Romana and Julia Clarete) whose personal fight started in the 1800s.
The story is much thicker and more absorbing than the other two episodes, involving three sets of women (Kathryn-Louise, Dimples-Julia and Ina Raymundo-Ara Mina as the mothers of Louise and Kathryn, respectively) who all have different motives in their conflict with each other. The most aggravating is that of Ina and Ara who are fighting over the same man, Lloyd Samartino, the husband of Ina who impregnates Ara. Aside from the scare factor, Tarrog also employs the “kadiri” factor that’s certainly not for the squeamish, like worms and frogs coming out from mouths and elsewhere.
Tarrog is well served by his cast of women. Kathryn and Louise are totally credible as the teeners whose friendship is slowly eroded by jealousy as they both fall for Sam Concepcion. Dimples and Julia as the disfigured, decaying witches are both truly scary in their prosthetic make up and the way they attack each other. Ina and Ara have both won best actress awards during their heydays as sexy stars (“Tuhog” for Ina, “Huling Birhen sa Lupa” and “Mano Po” for Ara) and they show that they have managed to maintain their sexy looks and their acting talent now that they play mother roles. If only for the “Parola” episode, the entire film is already worth the price of admission.
