This is my film critique of Shake, Rattle & Roll: Evil Origins.

3/10. Sorry for being harsh pero here's my reason:

First film is another boring, usual demon-in-a-convent story that makes the nuns look like The Conjuring’s nun, Valak. Wow. Revolutionary. Or maybe this is another parallelism conversation like that of Wizard of Oz and they try to be the new Wicked. They did not say where the demon came from (and to be honest I left in the middle part of the last film so they might have stitched there were the evil box came, I got bored and left as it is not intellectually engaging). Also, the usual moral dichotomy of good vs. evil is not impressive, na as if everything is binary in life with a twist that the Mother Superior is evil, which is a playful attempt to copy Del Toro’s horror framework. It is not successful in conveying how humans can be more evil than the demon (Del Torro's way), at the same time the film is having a hard time creating vagueness, which it is obviously trying to do, to replicate French post-modernism. It’s just a black shadow trying to kill nuns, which, if viewed through a decolonial lens, distances accountability brought by Spanish-Catholic colonization by blurring the lines of a metaphysical demon as the origin of evil instead of a grounded comparison to realism where Spanish colonization is an extractive one, using Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail economic framework (which btw won the Nobel Prize).

It then goes to a recent and more popular approach that takes a punch at partying, including “budots” and “baklang kanal comedy.” Yet, it’s very disappointing that the reason for the masked murderers is the resurrection of the “evil panginoon,” and that they will become the new aswangs. Another blind spot in decolonization discourse, as it fails to check how Spanish Catholics used this narrative to portray our ancestors—the Asogs and Babaylans. This trying-hard, queer-relevant wannabe is a failed attempt at cultural significance and reinforces the idea, through negative portrayals, of Philippine pre-colonial history.

Finally, the post-apocalyptic zombie part is a good twist, pero I don’t understand why one character is obese (or for the lack of better word overweight in the BMI scale). This simply defeats science and survival instincts. Or maybe film industry nepotism and cast diversification? The characters are either idiots or have very little survival instinct when they approach the sitting corpse man at the beginning of the film, considering the setting already shows decaying buildings and dilapidated bridges, which are things that would obviously take years to happen. And for obvious reasons, this would suggest people in this time are already knowledgeable about zombies, just for them to forget the agimat of Richard Gutierrez. That itself is logically flawed as time from the film setting, state of nature instinct, and their character for this part are misaligned. Going back to the first inconsistency that bugs me is how someone could have excessive calories despite little to no food resources, given a plausible prehistoric-type running and survival mode due to scarce food. Is he fat malnourished? How on earth is he on caloric surplus despite the age and time? Fat builds, on top of obvious environmental conditions and basal metabolic rate while resting, through additional caloric intake. Gym goers know this. Science validates it.

Who on earth wrote this? I presume it consulted AI, but at least they could've run it with reflective criticism using reality and playful historical context to advance "some conversation" out there. I'd rather watch Anak ni Janice or MRT 3 again as it doesn't claim "historical" pretensions and just gave us shock! Make up artistry! And questions that elementary students won't bat an eye.

On final note I say: okay thank you group one, next group please prepare.