Karnal

A fork in the road brings Narcing (Phillip Salvador) back to his hometown of Mulawin, rumored to be located not so far from Hell. Freshly married, he arrives from Manila in the hopes of introducing his wife Puring (Cecille Castillo) to his relatives. Gusting (Vic Silayan), the family’s domineering patriarch, does not welcome the couple kindly. Still scarred by the suicide of wife, Gusting immediately resents his son for what he perceives as a betrayal: the loss of land-owning heritage to the vulgarity of city women. Spite mingles with jealousy, turning to something altogether more sinister when Narcing’s behavior begins mirroring that of his father who, in turn, begins noticing Puring’s uncanny resemblance to his wife.

Following Brutal (1980) and Moral (1982), Marilou Diaz-Abaya closes her informal feminist trilogy with Karnal, a striking example of Filipino Gothic set in the 1930s. Inspired by a sordid true crime story, what begins as archetypal Filipino melodrama soon turns to horror: a Village of the Damned-inspired study of the places that turn people into monsters and of the cruel, feudalistic patriarchy that continues to have deadly repercussions for Philippines politics today. The latter is embodied brilliantly by Vic Silayan, on the heels of a similar, monstrous turn as a tyrannical father in Kisapmata (1981).