SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     Inday (Boo Originals, EpicMedia, 2018) is a scary movie with teeth, not just blood and entrails -- a gripping piece of work that jangles your nerves without leaving your brain hanging. And so, for a change, you emerge feeling energized and exhilarated rather than enervated or merely queasy. Recently faddish torture-and-gore pictures zero in on anatomical violation at the expense of more resonant archetypal terrors, those things that go bump in the long, dark night. Inday is a breathless descent into chaos and madness. What follows is a sensationally entertaining escalation of frights, the kind that make you wiggle and squirm as you marvel at the filmmaker's cunning and craft. What helps make Inday one of the better horror entertainment is how director Lawrence Fajardo and screenwriter John Bedia mess with our heads long before the monster does simply by tapping into our most primitive fears. Working with resourceful cinematographer Albert Banzon, Fajardo carves out an increasingly unsettling and claustrophobic world by keeping the lights down. The ingenious palette adds to the spooky beauty of the otherworldly setting. The scream of a high-pitched voice poised to believe, as we have so many times before, that this female cry is one of terror. 

     The sound, used to both reaffirm and then immediately invert our sense of social gender norms, provides a starting point to an ultimately blood-soaked film where we get to be petrified. Almost immediately in a moment of induced panic, hysteria festers among hacienda worker Berto (Milton Dionzon), his wife Almira (Renne Posecion) and son Kiko (Neil Bagasi). Yet, unlike many horror films where the victims are passive or weak, they can only turn toward themselves. And while Berto is scared (and rightly so), he desperately attempts to face the oppressive atmosphere enveloping them. A run in the woods is reminiscent of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991), its very nature is suggestive of what is to come later. Fajardo's characters do panic and make foolish choices after the first attack by the flesh-eating Master, their frenzy is trapped and overcome. We see reflections, variations, and gradations of ourselves in Inday. While it’s somewhat surprising that Fajardo’s film still feels startlingly fresh due to its cast of relative unknowns, one can only hope that directors and producers increasingly capitalize on these talented actors—in all their glory.

Directed By: Lawrence Fajardo

Screenplay: John Bedia

Director of Photography: Albert Banzon

Editor: Lawrence Fajardo

Musical Scorer: Peter Legaste

Sound Engineer: Alex Tomboc, Aian Caro