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| Photo Credit: Cinemalaya |
Starring: Christopher Roxas, Ynna Asistio Menggie Cobarubbias, Dexter Doria,
Xian Lim, mostly known as a model, actor, and host...has a film at Cinemalaya! He might yet become an interesting director, but his first effort behind the camera, while intriguing, is a complete misfire.
Watching Xian Lim's feature debut as a writer-director is super exciting. Only a few brave souls in the local industry go from acting to directing, so his decision to direct one, an indie film for that matter, is commendable.
The title is Tabon, which to me sounds like it refers to the early homo-sapiens in the country. But the poster looks nothing about it, and the first few seconds of the film affirm it's going to be something different.
It starts with Christopher Roxas' character watching his sleeping pregnant wife from the doorway of a room, with a young girl sleeping beside her. As he closes the door, he looks confused and we can see an ultrasound image of a baby beside him. Fade into black, the blood-spilt opening credits started to roll matched with an extremely terrifying music. There's no doubt that Tabon is going to be a horror.
The first half of the film is really intriguing. Christopher Roxas's character Ian received news that his estranged father Amang Zaldy (Menggie Cobarubbias) is dead. With his wife (Ynna Asistio) and stepdaughter, they went to his hometown to know the cause. The journey leading to it is filled with unsettling scenarios. At one point, they passed a butcher with a weird look on his face, and then they also hit a puppy on their way. If you're a horror movie fan, you just know that these are clues to whatever is going to happen in the movie especially that most of the time, nothing makes a lot of sense.
Everything looks puzzling, and it doesn't help that the confused look never leaves Roxas' face. Then when they reached their destination, the mystery continues to grow larger. At this point, all the answers could be written on the wall, but Xian Lim and Eseng Cruz's script hinders to make it easy for the audience. Ian barely asks the right questions, or he doesn't seem that interested to know about his father's death. But whenever he does, his questions are always left unanswered.
There is a disconnect between the dialogs of each character, and while it may be intended to keep the charades alive, the film just becomes more aggravating as it goes. When it finally started to reveal the resolution, it has already wallowed in ambiguity and didn't get a satisfying resolution.
The film reeks of recent horror movie elements, and Tabon begs to put itself on the same league with them. Ballsy if you ask me, but the premise looks better on paper than Xian Lim's direction. Clearly, he has big ideas for a horror movie but most of them unoriginal.
Still, Tabon shows a lot of promise for Xian Lim and if he continues to make movies of this genre, I might just continue to support out of curiosity.
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