The survival of man was ensured by his capacity to experience fear—the knowledge of needing to run away from predators, of having to hide in caves at night to avoid what lurks in the darkness. Stories told to instill fear of these predators into the hearts of men have been passed on for centuries, dating all the way back to various ancient cultures as part of their shared folklore. As human civilization progressed, however, these tales persisted, creeping into the public imaginary in different genres and forms of media.
Today, these disturbances of the natural order are often depicted through horror, an expansive genre designed to elicit a sense of fear and terror in the audience. The horror genre, as a whole, is heterogenous and protean, consisting of numerous subgenres and hybrid variants such as gothic horror, supernatural horror, monster movies, slasher films, psychological horror, and more. In spite of this, however, it is undeniable that a large number of the genre’s staple tropes find their roots in the folklore of a particular society, making use of cryptids and creatures as the abject sources of terror in the narratives. One such example would be that of the Shake Rattle and Roll franchise, a popular film series that holds the most number of sequel titles not just for horror films but for the entirety of Philippine cinema, often depicting the aswang and the manananggal.
Neither horror nor these monsters of folklore, however, exist in social, cultural, and political vacuums. The horror genre has long been criticized for its often exploitative, politically regressive subject matter based on racist, sexist, and classist ideological assumptions that lead to the othering of already marginalized identities. The monster is inexplicably entrenched in culture, history, and ideology as a representation of all that a particular society deems aberrant. Horror thus finds itself in a paradoxical position: simultaneously the analog of the anxieties of the common folk and the perpetrator of the ideological ends of the ruling hegemonic order.
Therefore, this study asks: What is the ideological discourse behind the similarities and differences between narratives in Filipino horror films and the lived experiences of individuals from marginalized sectors in Metro Manila?
For the methodology, hermeneutics was applied to three select Filipino horror films: Feng Shui, Shake, Rattle and Roll II, and Shake, Rattle and Roll III. Hermeneutic phenomenology was used to examine the lived experiences of terror and horror of eight individuals residing in Metro Manila who experience marginalization on the axes of race, class, and/or gender. The similarities between the codes and themes from the narratives on film and the lived experiences of the respondents were then framed in the context of the social, political, and economic conditions of the country. The data was analyzed to see if the underlying themes in the select films corresponded to the fears of the respondents, or if they reinforced any preconceived, politically regressive ideologies.
Robin Wood argued that the horror genre presents the source of fear not as what is ‘evil’ but as what is ‘other’—what the prevailing ideologies of a particular society cannot accept. The analysis of the films Feng Shui, Shake, Rattle and Roll II, and Shake, Rattle and Roll III revealed their narratives to be contested terrains of ideology through which the “figures of horror” come with themes that link them to the identities and experiences of women, other cultures, scientific rationality, and ethnic groups within a culture in the context of Philippine society.
There is, however, little overlap between the narratives of fear in the aforementioned films and the narratives of fear based on the lived experiences of the respondents who experience different forms of marginalization. One recurring source of fear and anxiety for the respondents is their livelihood. This phenomenon can be likened to how sites of capital in the metropolis are imbued with a particular sense of ‘uncanny’ due to the alienation and marginalization experienced by its denizens.
Perhaps it is because of these disparities that majority of the respondents made no mention of horror films being effective when it comes to inducing feelings of horror and terror, with some of them even saying outright that they found horror films to be ineffective. This is further supported by the little recall the respondents had when it came to remembering key details of the Filipino horror films they were familiar with.
Thus, the creative output for this study is Neophobia, a 60-page zine that serves as a deconstruction of Filipino Horror, blending illustration, comics, and graphic design. The zine is divided into three parts: Setting the Stage, which provides the historical context of how supernatural creatures found their way into the Filipinos’ collective unconscious; Lights, Camera, Action, which discusses images and stories in specific Filipino horror films; and Closing Night, a fictitious short story based on the lived experiences of individuals. When they step out of the theaters and close their television screens, what is revealed is a fear much more pervasive and inescapable than the terror of the 'other'—it is the terror of everyday life. ●
Kim Yutuc is a freelance illustrator specializing in editorial illustration and narrative work for fantasy and horror. In addition to being the Graphics Editor of the Philippine Collegian, they have worked for various magazines, games, and books, and have been part of international exhibits. They are graduating this year with a bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts from UP Diliman, with a major in Visual Communication.
Read Yutuc’s thesis here.
