Millennial fright nights

MANILA, Philippines — Senior critics can learn a lot by watching regular output by millennial filmmakers.

Surely, they have their own style of storytelling, their own brand of music and theme songs and their own way of wrapping up their stories.

Just because their output didn’t look and sound like Lino Brocka or Ishmael Bernal doesn’t mean they are inferior. Just because senior citizens ended up baffled and confused by their choices of soundtrack music didn’t mean they are out of touch.

It simply means they belong to this generation with their own way of thinking and resolving things and they didn’t have to be copycats of previous generation of filmmakers.

These thoughts come to mind as one monitors the output of young filmmaker Prime Cruz. His Sleepless is a good reflection of millennial angst which found another expression in his mainstream movie, Can We Just Be Friends?

Whether we like it or not, these are transition films in the evolution of young filmmakers. Of course, we expect them to get better and in the process, get better receptions from film audiences. How their audiences perceive them and how they learn from them will determine their future in Philippine cinema.

To illustrate, there is a lot that will keep audiences screaming in Cruz’s The Debutantes which had its preview screening Tuesday night.

Sue Ramirez as Kate in the movie. A deeply felt and consistent acting.

It is a mysterious tale of would-be debutantes who enjoy bullying as part of school life and as their way of asserting their social superiority.

The beautiful millennials in the movie — Michelle Vito, Jane Florence de Leon, Chanel Morales and Sue Ramirez

For the first time, one saw a consistently good performance of Ramirez whose character Kate had horrible dreams that turn nightmare into shocking reality.

Her solid and consistent acting was reminiscent of Sissy Spacek in the Brian de Palma’s horror film Carrie.

There is another younger character portrayed by a young actor who did just as well and her presence illuminated more horrifying moments of the film.

While there is some discomforting lull somewhere in the story, the frightening moments come at the right time and on the dot towards the ending.

To be sure, succeeding in eliciting fright is not the only measure of a good horror film. The filmmaker must appeal to the intellect as he should take advantage of the fragility of human instinct.

In this light, Cruz has a lot more to learn and a lot more to imbibe as filmmaker. But this output tells us he deserves more encouragement and better reception from moviegoers. After all, a good filmmaker doesn’t happen overnight.

The Debutantes is now showing in cinemas.