‘Pwera Usog’ review: Silly and sometimes senseless fun

Oggs Cruz

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‘Pwera Usog’ review: Silly and sometimes senseless fun
'['Pwera Usog'] knows its limitations and fills the gap with other elements like gags, wit, and spectacle to make sure that its viewers get their money’s worth'

Jason Paul Laxamana’s Pwera Usog is a strange and fascinating creature.

On one hand, it’s a formulaic horror flick, the type of movie whose clichéd characters and plot points are so familiar that it becomes too easy to predict what will happen in the end. On the other hand, it is smarter than it looks. It is cheeky and irreverent, without being too obvious in the way it pokes fun at almost all the things that make a Regal Films horror flick.

Millennials gone wild

Jean (Sofia Andres), the unambitious daughter of a busy businessman (Rommel Padilla), is the stereotypical wayward teen. Perhaps out of boredom and the need to prove that she is doing something with her life, she and her similarly situated friends Bobby (Albie Casiño) and Val (Cherise Castro) prank people and broadcast their successful pranks online for hits, likes, and comments.

Of course, as formula would dictate, their seemingly amoral hobby will be the cause of their curse. While on a roadtrip with Jean’s well-mannered ex-boyfriend Sherwin (Joseph Marco), they encounter a beggar (Devon Seron) and prank her. Because of the it, the beggar meets a fatal accident, which jumpstarts a series of supernatural afflictions beginning with nightmares featuring an ominous shadowy woman and ending with bouts of fatal retching. 

 

Laxamana goes over and beyond his assigned duty of setting his characters up for their predictable misfortune and forthcoming redemption. 

He depicts the rebellious teenagers to represent a generation addicted to attention, setting up scenes where Jean drunkenly dances in a club with everybody’s gazes on her, or dramatic confrontations where she defends her worth based on the views her videos have garnered. Pwera Usog’s portrayal of today’s youth is replete with humorous sarcasm on lack of purpose. 

Humorous horror

Laxamana doesn’t even attempt to make his characters likable. He just gives them a goal – to survive – and along the way, they do miraculously worthy things. The protagonists of the film aren’t role models. They’re essentially pawns in a narrative that is both allied to the Regal Films formula but is also a subtle parody of it.

Laxamana acknowledges that it takes more effort to scare nowadays. It isn’t enough to stage deliberately paced and muted sequences that unsurprisingly end in shock and noise. Instead of simply creating witless scares, he recruits brash exaggeration and self-aware tactics to comedic effect, reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s horror-comedy hybrids like Drag Me to Hell (2009).

In a hilarious scene, an experienced faith healer (Aiko Melendez, in a deadpan performance) spills a vat full of saliva she has collected through the years just to cure Jean of her ailment. In another, Jean, Sherwin, Melendez’s eccentric healer, and her adopted son Quintin (Kiko Estrada) step out of their meager hut armed with all sorts of rustic gear in battle formation, ready to take on their arch-nemesis (Eula Valdez).  

Clearly, Laxamana isn’t taking his film’s premise too seriously, and that flexible stance on his material makes Pwera Usog a lot more fun than it should be.

Eager to entertain 

In terms of its being a horror film, Pwera Usog doesn’t really work. Its scares are scant. The connection between its exploration of this generation’s caprices and the plot of a vengeful spirit is slight, strained, and somewhat senseless. 

However, it cannot be denied that the film is very eager to entertain. It knows its limitations and fills the gap with other elements like gags, wit, and spectacle to make sure that its viewers get their money’s worth. In the end, Pwera Usog’s a worthwhile prank. It is an intelligently crafted and entertaining experience. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.

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