Our own sweat and blood
About selling the movie: I want it to go the "exploitative" route, but in a more honest way. I want it to say, "We are poor, but passionate about movies." I want people to know that out of our own sweat and blood, we came up with this small movie. It’s our response in the face of what they say is a "dying movie industry."
What keeps Filipino movies in theaters now are the office employees who watch movies after work. The masses can’t afford to watch Filipino movies anymore.
How Pa-Siyam was born
After making the rounds of film festivals with Prosti and Gagamboy, I saw how foreigners - festival programmers, journalists, viewers - regard Filipino movies. When you hear what they have to say about our movies, you start feeling very small. Programmers hesitate to get Filipino movies because we’re famous for gay films. Other Asian film industries are getting noticed globally, but not Philippine cinema.
Serious Asian movie fanatics say the reason Filipino movies are strong in markets like Toronto is because they think of our films as novelty films. For example, if you want to see a house that doesn’t look like a house, go see a Third World Filipino movie. If you want male strippers rubbing oil on their bodies, watch a Filipino movie.
I was in Udine with Gagamboy, and after watching the other movies I thought, "Shit, I have to do something fresh and universal, too!" Looking at the Korean or Chinese movies makes me jealous of their work. Their movies are true to their cultures, but with a very strong universal theme that holds their stories.
Horror with certain limitations
So my partner and I decided that we would produce a horror movie. Before we started writing the script, we had to think of a story that would work around certain limitations. First, the movie had to be shot within a short period of time. Second, it would be shot on high-definition (HD) or digital video (DV) format. I really wanted the mini-DV format, but HD was more accessible cost-wise. Third, we had to assemble actors and staff who would agree to defer their fees.
We decided that the story should be universal but truly Filipino. When I say universal, what I mean is that even if you’re from Timbuktu, you will still know what the filmmakers are talking about.
Twists upon twists upon twists!
The first premise we thought of was about a closely-knit family in which the mother dies. There’s a local belief that if you don’t embalm the dead, they come back. Because this family loves the mother so much, they don’t want to have her embalmed. Then she comes back and they’re happy. Then bad things begin to happen: the father is also brought back from the grave…
We didn’t pursue this first story because it seemed kind of forced. It was difficult to complete the plotline without making it sound contrived.
And then we thought of the Pa-Siyam angle. It’s partly inspired by The Da Vinci Code: you think the story is this and then - boom! It’s not what you thought it was! It’s twists upon twists upon twists! More than being a horror movie, there is a strong mystery angle to the story. A horror movie with a whodunnit.
Making a horror movie is risky: it requires careful manipulation of the audience. Careful in the sense that if you go overboard on the horror scenes because you want the audience to feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth, you tend to overdo it and resort to cheap tricks. We want it to be horrifying, but we don’t want to use tricks like loud music to jolt the audience or a hand grabbing the protagonist, only it turns out to be his sister. It is a complicated genre to handle because you have to be constantly ahead of your audience, but without condescending to them and ultimately alienating them.
The scariest horror movie
The scariest movie I ever saw was Rosemary’s Baby. It’s about a childless young couple who meet an old couple and then suddenly their lives improve… The wife becomes pregnant, the husband who’s a struggling actor suddenly gets a big break. Good things suddenly happen to them, but it’s so eerie.
So Pa-Siyam is about a mother who dies. She had been left in the care of the family retainers - an old married couple and their daughter. One day, she is found dead by the caretakers. Her children are informed, and they come home to their province to bury their mother. The eldest child returns from his job in Saudi Arabia. They bury their mother, then most of them want to leave. The eldest son says he’s staying - the least they can do is pray for her. The others also decide to stay, and they have the pa-siyam or the nine-day novena for the soul of the departed.
And then strange things start to happen.
Improvisation on the set
It’s a very story-driven horror movie.
It’s all improv on set. Everyone helped each other develop the outcome of the scene. This movie could not have been done if we didn’t cast good actors.
I’ve never done a movie in nine days. With the short shooting period, I had to device a way to fast-track shooting so I could do a lot of scenes in a day. Since our HD camera comes with a steadicam, I decided to shoot most of the scenes in one long shot. And on HD, I can shoot ten minute sequences with no cuts. Except of course on the horror sequences where we need more camera coverage. That’s why I wanted sharp actors. Otherwise, if the ensemble had one actor who wasn’t good, I’d have to constantly retake long takes - which would cause problems given the tight shooting schedule.
This movie is not unreal or fantastic. It’s very grounded, real human drama. It’s about family, taking care of parents, and uncovering family secrets. No horror for horror’s sake; all the horror you see is tied to the story.
A movie that is close to my heart
After Mano Po 2, I swore that I would never make a movie that is not close to my heart. Pa-Siyam is very meaningful to me because it’s a story that I chose to work on.
I think the only way for the Filipino film industry to survive is to go global. There is no future if we continue to make films only for the Philippine market. Filipino filmmakers should be challenged to do movies without looking down on the audience, which is what our major studios are constantly asking our filmmakers to do. They always presume that the audience will have to be spoonfed every bit of information. I love movies that interact with the audience, that make the audience think and feel alongside the movie. If we’re stuck in our own market, the market is simply too small and too Hollywood-oriented for our projects to make financially and critically.
We’re not trying to come up with an experimental movie. I don’t do arthouse movies. I want my movies to be enjoyed by as many people as possible. I don’t want to do movies that only my mother can appreciate because she has to as a sensitive parent. With the million and one horror movies that have been done, we tried to come up with something fresh and original.
We are offering the audience our "small" film. If the Filipino market embraces Pa-Siyam, it could be a start of a new wave of Filipino movies. We are appealing to the audience. If you’re sick and tired of seeing the same kind of Filipino movies, here is something new.