Cannes award-winning director Brillante
Mendoza’s first horror film, “Sapi”, will open at SM Cinemas beginning November
6. A co-production between Solar Films and Centerstage Productions, the film
depicts the phenomenon of possession vis a vis the frightening realities of
everyday life.
In the film, Sarimanok Broadcasting
Network (SBN) needs a miracle to stay alive in the competition with its rival
station Philippine Broadcasting Channel eating up the TV audience’s major
share. SBN’s news team finds that
documenting an actual spiritual possession could be their only hope.
Tasked to head the documentary
production is Meryll Flores (Meryll Soriano), a trainee TV executive producer,
along with Dennis Marquez (Dennis Trillo), the reporter. Needless to say, the success of the project
will also secure their eventual promotion in the company.
However, the miracle seems to evade
Meryll’s team. They go distant places,
schools, provincial areas, religious groups, and faith healers, just to cover
the case of mass possession, but to no avail.
They simply cannot find a single incident of possession.
Worse, Baron Valdez (Baron Geisler),
cameraman of the rival network PBC, is the one who was able to capture the
isolated case of demonic possession that involved a high school teacher.
To fulfill her task, Meryll enters
into a deal that is more profoundly horrifying than the harrowing scene of
paranormal possession. To acquire the
needed footage, she buys the outtakes of the Ruby possession case from
Baron.
But at the point where Meryll
imagines to be the turning point of her new career, an exorcising reality dawns
on her with a spiraling effect that mirrors the political system governing the
TV network.
Reality
is profoundly stranger than fiction, as Sapi
offers not only horrifying cases of exorcism, but most importantly, uses the
said occult phenomenon as a metaphor for the appalling state of Philippine
government; supposed public servants acting as spirit possessing Juan de la
Cruz, consuming and corrupting the wealth and minds of the helpless nation.
Anong kinatatakutan mo? SAPI.
