Movie review: Style over scares in ‘Binhi (The Seed)’

“Binhi” – the feature-length debut of veteran commercial and music video director Pedring Lopez – opens promisingly, with the classic horror set-up of a married couple from the big city (Manila) moving into a large provincial house (in Baguio) that the previous owners vacated and sold off under mysterious circumstances. With the wife, Cynthia (Mercedes Cabral), in the late stages of pregnancy, and husband Daniel (Joem Bascom) about to start a new job, the immediate future looks bright.

In due course, we meet Daniel’s childhood friends, Alex (Cholo Barretto) and Gel (Roxanne Barcello), with whom he was close before he left Baguio for Manila under mysterious circumstances. Being relatively well-to-do, Alex not only had a hand in acquiring the house for Daniel, he was also the one who helped him find a job.

As the couple settle into their new lives, Cynthia begins having supernatural encounters with what appears to be the spirit of a little girl (child actress Kariz Espinosa) that roams the house, leading her to begin asking questions about the previous occupants. When Daniel starts having similar experiences, he seeks the help of Alex’s uncle, a mangkukulam, in an attempt to learn the truth about the entity.

When it comes to Philippine horror films, it is no exaggeration to say that the precious few that are actually any good are far outweighed by an almost disproportionate number of misfires, flops, and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” sequels. This isn’t even going into the tendency of local filmmakers to either overcompensate in their depictions or outright ignore our country’s rich pre-existing supernatural folklore in favor of aping their foreign counterparts.

Of course, it must be noted, a lack of original components in no way diminishes a film’s potential to be something altogether unique and entertaining (take “Star Wars’” hi-tech pastiche of pulp sci-fi, high fantasy, Kurosawa, and Joseph Campbell for instance), and it was with this in mind that I had high hopes when “Binhi” opened with the horror genre’s umpteenth young couple moving into a house they’ve acquired through unusually favorable circumstances. The fact that Cynthia was pregnant was like icing on the cake.

Sadly, “Binhi’s” main problem isn’t that it fails to do anything original, it’s that it fails at nearly every turn to live up to its raison d'être, which is to scare.

Let’s start with the storytelling, where lapses in logic range from those dictated by the genre (choosing to stay in the house, despite repeated undead visitations) to those dictated by the screenplay (Daniel’s memory gap – deliberate or otherwise – about the reason he left Baguio notwithstanding, do provincial capitols really keep family photos of their constituents?). And then there are the plot points that are introduced only to be forgotten, such as Daniel’s being needlessly secretive about his father’s death (under mysterious circumstances), the (non-) visit of Cynthia’s mom, and the presence of Gel’s brother for precisely one scene. And don’t get me started on the nurses towards the end who completely forget what they saw in the driveway, or the film’s constant reminders in the first thirty minutes that Cynthia and Daniel had to leave Manila, while neglecting to tell us that the house they moved into has no nearby neighbors only half an hour after the ghost starts appearing.

Funnily enough, the disproportionate expository overload we receive in the first thirty minutes is matched only by the awkwardly presented expository overload of the last fifteen minutes, before being wrapped up in a denuement straight out of “Final Destination”, and followed by a final punchline obvious to anyone who bothered to check the film’s title. On the bright side, I have been shown a hitherto unknown use for reflective early warning device triangles.

As the leads, Bascom and Cabral are talented enough to rise above the clunky dialogue to imply a subtext that is welcome to the proceedings. Indeed, the way they play Cynthia and Daniel’s seeming resistance to openly discussing their increasingly haunted existence (or anything, really) gives one the definite impression that the couple was struggling to hold on even before their current supernatural state of affairs.

Overall, however, it would seem that most of the effort went into the production side of things, as there is no question that the film is well put-together from a technical perspective. A perfect example of “Binhi’s” tendency towards style over substance can be seen nearly every time the ghost shows up. I honestly lost count how many times the camera would establish a scene before doubling back to an area of the room (or mirror, or doorway) we’d already been shown, to reveal, surprise(!), our resident dead girl. There was even one instance where they did it upwards of three times in the same sequence (to make sure we got it?). While the preparation and coordination that go into staging a good handheld tracking shot are no joke, the film presents us with so many of them as to be needlessly repetitive. Like a magician doing the same trick over and over again, you can only spring the same scare on an audience so many times before it gets old.

Frustratingly, the marketing for “Binhi” has been, quite honestly, nothing short of superlative; in addition to an aggressive social media push and multiple trailers making the rounds online (and off-), the film gained mainstream traction when an unmarked video of a little girl playing on a swing in sillhouette began appearing on a large LED billboard along the capital’s main artery. Sandwiched between traditional advertisements, the spot stood out, catching the eyes of many a commuter, even if they weren’t entirely sure what it was they were looking at.

The premiere night was no different, with public relations gags that legendary cinema-owner William Castle (known for introducing gimmicks during screenings) would have loved: Tickets to the event featured detachable raffle stubs done up as waivers to relieve the filmmakers of any and all responsibility should guests find their creation too scary. There was even a photo-taking area near the cinema entrance where guests could take shots on the infamous swing, complete with low-hanging tree limb. Lopez and his team saved the best for last, though, arranging for the house lights to remain dimmed long after the end credits had rolled so that a troop of little girls dressed as the film’s main spectre could get in one last scare.

With an experienced crew, talented actors, and a full-on multiplatform engagement experience to die for (pun intended) as a launching point, “Binhi” had everything going for it.

It is truly unfortunate, then, that this review is for the film. — BM, GMA News

"Binhi" is now showing in theaters.