‘ROOFTOP’ is now being shown in all SM Cinemas as part of the Asian Horrorfest with scary film entries from Vietnam and Thailand. The ticket price is only P199.
It’s set in a boarding school called St. Benedict.
During their school break, most of the students go back to their respective homes but six of them remain in the school and their dorms: Ryza Cenon, Marco Gumabao, Ella Cruz, Rhen Escano, Marco Gallo and Andrew Muhlach.
Being young and carefree, they decide to have a drinking party at the school’s rooftop.
At first, the school's caretakers, played by Allan Paule and Epy Quizon, won’t allow them. But Marco and Andrew bribe them both.
While dancing on top of the rooftop’s dome, they call on Epy, who’s shy and a bit slow, to join them.
They later play a prank on him and accidentally push him off the rooftop and down to his death below.
Instead of taking him to the hospital or reporting it to the cops, they cover up the crime.
Then strange things start happening to them when Epy returns as a zombie-like ghost to haunt them.
The movie has many jump scares achieved with the aid of blaring music and sound. We were with our family when watched it and our daughter in law kept on screaming in the fright scenes.
The most scary scenes show Andrew being spooked by Epy’s ghost who is under his bed and keeps on kicking him and when Ella suddenly flies into the air because of some malevolent supernatural force.
The acting is quite good, specially Ryza as the most harassed victim of Epy and Marco as the guy who turns out to be the most devious among them. Epy is very effective, with lots of prosthetic make up applied on him, in scaring Ryza and company, and also the audience.
“Rooftop” belongs to the genre of horror flicks we call as the “naghihiganting multo” movie.
There are many such movies in local cinema and we keep on pointing out that if the ghost just wants to have justice and take revenge on those who did him wrong, then our tendency is to side with the ghost since he is the one who was oppressed.
A horror movie will only be truly effective if the lead characters are sympathetic.
If they are innocent about the death of the ghost, then we would really be afraid for their safety and cheer for them to escape from the ghost.
But if they were the ones guilty of causing the ghost’ death, then we can even say: “Buti nga sa inyo!”
