How scary!

It’s two weeks to Halloween and this early TV shows are already preparing ghost stories to scare the viewers.

On the big screen, you should try and catch Ang Pamana, a Fil-Canadian horror film directed by Romeo Candido. It stars Fil-Canadian actors – plus Phoemela Barranda, who is very good in the movie (it opens the week of All Saints’ Day).

Tomorrow, Mike Tuviera’s Txt is also showing. It stars Angel Locsin, Dennis Trillo and Oyo Sotto. I’ve read the script of Txt and when I put it down, I had difficulty sleeping that night. Now, I’m very eager to watch it and see how it is translated into film.

I expect Txt to be a good one because the University of Southern California-educated Mike Tuviera has already established himself as an award-winning short filmmaker and his films had been accepted and exhibited in prestigious film festivals abroad. And then, he is basically a horror movie fan and that is a plus factor.

Like most people of this generation, the first horror film that Mike Tuviera saw was Nightmare on Elm Street. His favorite horror movies, however, are Sixth Sense, The Others and Sigaw.

No, he is not patterning Txt after any of these horror flicks. The material of Txt came from a bad dream he had while in Bangkok early this year. He put down the details on his cell phone when he woke up, worked on the script in the succeeding weeks and months and now it is a finished film ready for public exhibition tomorrow.

* * *

Not exactly falling under the horror genre is First Day High. But somehow you are horrified watching it.

First Day High is a whodunit Bagets-style. The story is basically finding out who is the culprit behind a water contamination scandal that erupted during a basketball match between two exclusive schools.

Jason Abalos serves as narrator and as he is interrogated by Bembol Roco, who leads the investigation, we are introduced to the film’s different characters.

There’s Kim Chiu, the scholarly type who falls in love with varsity player Gerald Anderson. Then, there’s also Maja Salvador, who comes from a noveau riche family that enriched themselves through hog farming. And then, almost as an afterthought, we meet Geoff Eigenmann, the rebellious artist type son of basketball coach Michael de Mesa.

The production values of First Day High is first-rate. I liked, for instance, the color-coding scheme they used on the characters. The film undeniably becomes a visual delight because of this technique and it is very effective.

They used yellow for the character of Kim Chiu because she is shy, timid and mousy. Gerald Anderson is red to signify the brightness of life – his youth and exuberance. Maja Salvador is purple because it is a sophisticated color. Black is assigned to Geoff Eigenmann because he is rebellious. Jason Abalos is blue because... because he is the water boy? Whatever is the reason for the color assigned to him (to them) becomes immaterial because the material is so lacking in color.

At no point in the film would you sympathize with any of the characters because all their problems in life are so superficial – just like the film.

I had high hopes for First Day High because it is directed by Mario Cornejo, whose Big-Time got an A from the Cinema Evaluation Board and even got nominated for Best Picture in the Gawad Urian.

You actually still see Cornejo’s meticulous directorial touches in First Day High, but his efforts are hopelessly pulled down by a very inferior material. And this is what horrifies me.

Obviously, we have very good directors, production designers and other technical people who are capable of mounting a handsome production like First Day High. But whatever happened to our writers? Our scripts, if not copied from Hollywood and Korean films, are just plain trashy and the quality is fast deteriorating. I worry about the future of Philippine cinema because not much attention is focused on the material. And no one seems to be worried about it, except for a few people like me.

How scary!