From The Philippines

 

 (imdb)

WOMAN IN THE WOODS-2020-Jason (Brian Sy), a Canadian of Philippine extraction, returns to The Philippines after the death of his father. Getting lost in the jungle, he meets Magayon (Mercedes Cabral), a spirit no one else can see, who's wounded. He gets help from Batibat, a local woman who tells him a legend. Then he starts on a tedious aimless adventure while being pursued by a pack of warriors. 

The giant with the tusks was kind of cool but the rest of this is meandering nonsense. The director Kevin Ang also worked as an animator on several Marvel productions.

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Living It Up at The Hotel Acacia

 

 (themoviedb.org)

HOTEL ACACIA-2019-A stupid man grooms his son to take over a special government project: a hotel that is supposed to take care of immigrants but in fact "tenants" are fed to a monster that also likes to impregnate women. This Philippine film directed by Bradley Liew is very boring, confusing and didn't make much sense to me.

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Hooked on Vampires

 

 (imdb)

VAMPIRE HOOKERS-1978-Tom Buckley (Bruce Fairbairn) & Terry Wayne (Trey Wilson) are two sailors on leave in The Philippines. While looking for a missing buddy, Tom stumbles upon old vampire Reed Richmond (John Carradine) and his 3 vampire brides (Karen Stride,Lenka Novak,Katie Dolan) who pose as hookers to lure unsuspecting victims. They are assisted by the pathetic Pavo (Vic Diaz) who wants to ge a vampire but for some reason isn't. A running gag is his farting. Richmond says things like “Walt Whitman must have been a vampire”.

 It's pretty cheesy despite the good-looking vampire girls. Reed Richmond was actually Carradine's real first names. 

The screenplay is by Howard R. Cohen who later wrote a lot for Roger Corman productions (SPACE RAIDERS, DEATHSTALKER). Director Cirio H. Santiago (FIRECRACKER (1981)) made around 100 movies.

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Cannibal Horror

 

LAST CANNIBAL WORLD (aka JUNGLE HOLOCAUST)-1977-Searching for oil, Robert Harper (Massimo Foschi) and his friends Rolf (Ivan Rassimov), Charlie (Sheik Razak Shikur) and Swan (JudyRosly) crash land in a jungle in The Philippines. While contending with alligators and boas, they explore. At night Swan disappears. The men search for her and Charlie is impaled by an obvious trap.Later the guys spy a group of savage cavemen like cannibals enjoying a guest. They assume it's Charlie so they go off and build a raft to escape but a rapids and a rock put an end to that and Rolf's life. Robert is now all alone in the cannibal jungle! After wandering, eating poison mushrooms and vomiting, the natives capture him, chain him to a rock and tear off all his clothes (warning: full frontal male nudity). After he survives a fall (they wanted to see if he could fly) he's put in a pit and native kids piss on him. A native woman  (Me Me Lai) seems to take a liking to him. A snake eats a bat and the bizarre savages disembowel a crocodile. Robert manages to escape his prison and run away, forcibly taking the native girl with him. While running through the jungle they see a woman give birth. After an encounter with leeches the girl runs away. He pursues her. When he catches her he punches her, slaps her, bloodies her nose and rapes her doggy style. She seems to have a change of heart though and later brings him food. Seeking shelter from a storm, they hide in a cave and find Rolf alive but wounded. The trio wander some, can't attracted a helicopter looking for them and almost get eaten by crocodiles. Despite their best efforts, the tribe catches up with them. They kill the girl, eviscerate her, cook her entrails and eat them. Near the end Robert fights and kills one of the natives and eats his heart. He and Rolf (who takes a spear in the chest) make it back to the plane but Rolf dies. Said to be based on a true story. This cannibal craziness was directed by Ruggero Deodato who later made another exploitative cannibal movie CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and other violent low budget dreck. Lamberto Bava is credited with script continuity.

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Manila Dead

 

THE THIRSTY DEAD-1974-In Manila (where this was filmed) some young women, Bonnie (Chiqui da Rosa), Claire (Meredith McConnell; THE DOLL SQUAD), Laura (Jennifer Billingsley) and Ann (Fredricka Meyers) are kidnapped by some hooded thugs and taken to a remote place. At first they believe they're prisoners of white slavers but then they learn they are captives of an ancient cult lead by Ranu (Tani Gutherie) and Baru (John Considine; a year after DR.DEATH-SEEKER OF SOULS). They have special leaves that when mixed with the blood of young women make a potion that gives "the chosen" eternal life. They all worship a head in a red crystal like stone. They want Laura to join them but she refuses so Baru locks her in a dungeon where some hideous women with long fingernails attack her. They are former victims drained to uselessness. An old woman helps the quartet escape but when they stop in a tiny village they are recaptured. Randu does a dance in front of the head while Baru talks to Laura about life before eternal youth. After the old woman who helped her is killed Baru decides to help them escape. Claire falls to her death but he leads the others through the jungle after letting free the ugly victims as a diversion. Unfortunately he goes beyond the "ring of age" and starts getting old. The girls escape but when Laura brings back the police lead by a grouchy Lieutenant (Vic Diaz) they are unable to find anything. Ken Metcafe (later the male lead in FIRECRACKER) is a helicopter pilot. 

This is the only full length feature directed by actor Terry Becker (Sgt. Sharkey on TV's “Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea”) after many TV credits. He also co-produced it and provided the story.

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https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-from-japan-one-from-philippines.html

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2019/05/dr-death-and-mr-howard.html

Philippine Horror

DAUGHTERS OF SATAN-1972-In this Philippines shot horror film, a guy (Tom Selleck) brings home a painting of three witches. His wife Chris (Barra Grant) resembles one of them and seems bent on suddenly killing him. She toys with a dagger when his back is turned and almost suffocates him with some burning gas. A doctor (Vic Silayan) tries to convince hubby that his wife is possessed. The picture comes to life and shows the witches actually being burned at the stake. Later Chris is hung topless above some spikes and whipped by the head of a coven.

There's too much talk and the acting by the two leads isn't very good. The ending is dumb too. It does features Vic Diaz, a comedian who played villains in many Philippine productions. Director Hollingsworth Morse made very few movies but did lots of TV episodes including F-TROOP, HR PUFNSTUF and MARCUS WELBY.

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Maid For Horror

THE MAID-2005-A girl named Rose (Alessandra de Rossi) leaves her home in The Philippines and goes to Singapore to live and work with a superstitious family (husband and wife and their mentally challenged son). She begins to see ghosts and other strange apparitions that seem to lead to Esther, the young girl who worked there before Rosa. Death by burning, rape and a plan to marrying Rosa off to a ghost all figure in this weird and entertaining horror film from director Kelvin Tong.


"Most of us love from our need to love, not because we find someone deserving"-Nikki Giovanni

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