Dugo Ng Vampira (1969)

1969 – Dugo Ng Vampira/“Blood Of The Vampire” (VP Pictures/Sampaguita Pictures)

[Release date 12th June 1969]

Director/Screenplay Emmanuel H. Borlaza Story Rico Bello Omagap based on his Lagim Komiks serial Executive Producer/VP Pictures President José Roxas Perez [as “J.R.P”] Cinematography Felipe S. Santiago Music Danny Holmsen Editor Marcelino Navarro Assistant Director Warlito M. Teodoro Camera Assistants Ernesto de la Paz, Mariano Manuel Special Photographic Effects Ricardo “Mang Andoy” Marcelino, Pete Carreon Sound Supervision Flaviano Villareal Rerecording Alfonso Nuke Rerecoding Assistants Tomas Olfindo, Tony Caymo Jr Recording Rosalino Torres Recording Assistants Amado Valdez, Pablo Paulino Makeup/Hair Conching Morato Costume Supervisor Marichu E. Nina Set Supervisor Bert Sto. Domingo Laboratory Technician Vicente J. Aquende Laboratory Assistant Rufino Rosales Printer Bobby Braga Printer Assistant Angel Braga Assistant Editor Jessie Navarro Titles Greg Alcid Jr Technical Assistant Ernesto M. Maceda

Cast Gina Pareno (Lucinda/Rosario), Edgar Salcedo (Victor), Myrna Delgado (Lucinda & Rosario’s Mother), Tito Galla (Rufo), Charlie Davao (Angustia the Vampire), Venchito Galvez, Ven Medina, Tita de Villa, Nenita Jana, Aring Bautista, Linda Martin, Glenn Bernardo, Gina Alajar (Young Lucinda), Bella Flores (Vampire Bride), German Moreno (Gay Tourist), Apolonio Abadeza, Jessette Prospero, Byron Cruz, Sammy Fresado, Nestor Arsenal, Leo Ferrer

HORROR

Screen Stardom [issue unknown, 1969], p.30 (image courtesy of James de la Rosa and his Pelikula atbp blog)

Review by Andrew Leavold

Horror has long been a staple of Filipino genre cinema, even in its earliest features prior to World War 2. Later horror films such as Gerry de Leon’s Kamay Ni Satanas (1950) and the Faustian tale Satur (dir. Lamberto V. Avellana, 1952) betray a ferocious Catholicism, while Ramadal (dir. Nemesio E. Caravana, 1958) - “BEWARE! An Invisible Man is on the loose in Manila!” - is a gleeful appropriation of imported Hollywood conventions. Vampire cinema in particular lends itself to the Filipino sensibility, planting itself comfortably on top of the Philippines’ rich legacy of folklore and superstition: malevolent shapeshifting Aswang, the bloodsucking Manananggal whose bodies split in two at the torso, even the tree-dwelling Tikbalang, centaurs with the head and legs of an enormous horse. It’s strange, then, that most Pinoy vampire films from the Sixties should be of the nudge-wink variety, either in horror vehicles leavened with comedy to make them more palatable (“4 spine-chilling, rib-tickling comedy-horror thrillers!” screams the poster for the anthology film Kababalaghan O Kabulastugan), or as foils for popular comedians Dolphy, Chiquito and Pugo.

As with much of the Philippines’ pre-Eighties cinema, very few vampire films from the period have survived. Thankfully there are two bona-fide masterpieces of Pinoy horror by Gerry de Leon…and then there’s Dugo Ng Vampira from 1969. Naturally it’s unfair to sit Dugo… next to the exponentially and, by their very pedigree, superior de Leon films The Blood Drinkers (1964) and Curse Of The Vampires (1966), but comparisons are inevitable. For years Dugo Ng Vampira (translated: Blood Of The Vampire) was believed to be the Tagalog title of Curse Of The Vampires (also released in the US as Blood…), and only recently surfaced after Sampaguita transferred their remaining film library onto VHS through retailer Kabayan Central.

Dugo Ng Vampira is very much a product of a studio system in decline, and it shows; Vera Perez Pictures was an offshoot of Sampaguita Films which until the early Sixties was part of the Big Three’s monopoly over Filipino cinema, along with LVN Pictures, and Premiere Productions, owned by Cirio H. Santiago’s family. Both The Blood Drinkers and Curse Of The Vampires were constructed from the ground up as export-friendly titles, filmed in Technicolour and dubbed into English using the actors’ own voices. Dugo…, on the other hand, is a prime example of the local industry’s glaring limitations: patchy live sound, an unwieldy regulation 110-minute running time, a masala of melodrama and comedy based on a pre-branded komik series, and a dreadful transfer from a scratched, rat-assed black and white 35mm print. That the film still exists, however, is a miracle in itself; the fact it’s a decent populist Pinoy horror from the Sixties is, for the most part, pure cream.

Dugo Ng Vampira’s hand-scribed credits flash over an opening that’s vintage Universal horror: the town’s landed gentleman and unrepentant vampire Angustia (Charlie Davao) has just feasted on a young female victim (Bella Flores) and is now pursued by an angry mob of torch-carrying villagers. Cornered in the grounds of his villa, Angustia is staked through the heart with a sharpened cross and left to die alone in agony. With the sound of a howling wolf in the distance, he is tended to by his distraught sweetheart (Myrna Delgado), who removes the cross and buries him underneath it. Being mortal, she is also carrying the vampire’s children – twins, one good and one inherently evil – and after her mother is thrown down her stairs by an unseen force (linked to the cobra curled around the vampire’s grave marker!), she leaves one of the babies, flees the village with the other child, and heads in a trance directly for the sanctuary of Angustia’s villa.

Hasta la Vampira!

A decade passes, and the mother grows suspicious of her remaining child’s true nature. She catches the girl Lucinda (Gina Alajar) in a cave talking to a cobra and bat – and the bat, a bizarre sock puppet contraption with wings, is talking back! The girl plumps up quickly into a brazen teenaged hussy (Gina Pareno), unaware of the existence of her twin sister Rosario (also Pareno, without the excessively vampish makeup, puffy hair and go-go boots). Meanwhile the mouldered corpse of their father rises out of the soil, transforms into his suave former self, then disappears in a flapping of bat wings and reappears at the villa along with his last victim, unlocked from her cobra shell. Angustia and his new bride are keen to teach Lucinda the finer points of her vampiric legacy (“We need blood,” they hiss, “HUMAN blood…”), and take her for a flying visit around the craggy countryside looking for victims. It’s here the film’s rudimentary special effects – dissolves, jump cuts, miniatures for the Villa exterior – take a quantum leap: Lucinda complains of being tired, and suddenly the cabal split into two mid-air in typical Manananggal fashion, their fanged top halves continuing to soar while the bodies gently land. A simple optical effect, and positively prehistoric by today’s standards, but crudely and eerily effective.

Lucinda takes a flying split

Naturally the plaited, seminary-going Rosario is mistaken for her bloodsucking sister, and her beloved Victor (Edgar Salcedo) becomes fiercely protective of her; once the angry villagers notice she is not scared of a crucifix but the “other” Rosario is, the hunt is on for a neighbourhood vampire. (Theirs’ is only a small provincial village, so how could they miss a mother and child camped in their most notorious resident’s former hacienda? And here’s another plot hole so large you could part a hearse in it: why didn’t Angustia turn to ash at the film’s beginning? Now back to the movie proper…) Victor’s deceitful, treacherous lothario brother Rufo (Tito Galla) arrives from the city and he too has eyes for Rosario; Rufo’s plan is to trap her in his house until she falls in love with him, but then the equally duplicitous Lucinda, posing as Rosario, seduces him over to the Other Side. The scenario now brother against brother, mother against child, as both families fight to save what Goodness is left within them.

More pronounced than ever is the presence of Evil – in this instance, vampirism - as a dramatic rip in the fabric of everyday, God-fearing, family-bound normalcy. The film’s core rests upon a triumvirate of dualistic relationships, one representing Good, or at the very least temporarily lost and potentially salvageable, and the other Evil: unwed mother and vampire Angustia, daughters Rosaria (Rosary, perhaps?) and Lucinda (Lucifer?) and brothers-at-war Victor and Rufo. The protracted finale sees not only Victor cornered and forced to kill his sibling (in a neat twist, with a conch shell!), but the mother to sacrifice her Bad Seed – by this moment, Angustia has already impaled his jealous vampire bride on the iron rod sticking out of his chest. “Why didn’t you call God?” demands the mother, as Lucinda writhes under the shadow of a makeshift cross. “Hope you rest in peace,” she says quietly, as Lucinda turns to ashes and is blown away by the wind. In Dugo’s intensely moral, necessarily komik page black-and-white universe, Evil is ultimately vanquished and the wayward are brought back to God’s bosom, but at a heavy price.

At times you’d be forgiven for thinking Dugo… is a Bollywood remake of a Mexican vampire film: melodramatic, a fusion of Asian and Hispanic family-centricity, tarnished and years-weary, and entertaining in an arched, eccentric way. In its favour it’s not nearly as cloying and sentimental as it could be, there are no musical numbers to spoil the atmosphere, and the regulation comic relief from a mugging German Moreno – effeminate leader of a group of tourists stranded overnight at Angustia’s villa - is kept to a minimum, as is the teen soap angle (if Vilma Santos or Nora Aunor were the lead, God help us...). OK, so comparisons are mean, and so what if Dugo Ng Vampira is no Curse Of The Vampires? Sometimes it’s good to turn a blind eye to the Ugly Duckling’s smarter and prettier classmates and welcome them home as a lost child, sorely missed and never to be forgotten.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

- mp4 file [in Tagalog with no subtitles]

Red Belt Master (1974)

Image courtesy of Simon Santos' Video 48 blog

1974 – Red Belt Master (Gerald Productions)  

[Release date 23rd June 1974]  

Directors Carlos O. Manalastas, Angel Labra Story/Screenplay Jerry O. Tirazona  

Cast Trovador Ramos, Rommel Valdez [as Rommell Valdez], Gina Pareno, Paquito Diaz, Charlie Davao, Perry Baltazar, Max Alvarado, Protacio Dee, Johnny Vicar, Ernie Ortega, Robert Rivera, Ruben Ramos, Sancho Tesalona, Jun Santos, Pong Pong, SOS Daredevils, PMP [Stuntmen], PIS [Stuntmen], Tracma Boys, Pepe Cruz, Rey Javier, Jim de Leon  

Proposed Cast* Trovador Ramos (Cabigat, an Igorot brave whose father was killed by a band of goons), Rommel Valdez (Rommel, top undercover agent of the law who comes to the small Igorot village to get classified information about landgrabbing in the place), Gina Pareno (Lamya, the Igorot maiden), Charlie Davao (Don Manolo, the greedy landlord and miner), Sancho Tesalona (Sancho, one of the Don's trusted men), Johnny Vicar (Johnny, another trusted man of the Don), Jim Delon (Jim, Rommel's detective partner) Don's Henchmen Aldo Cruz, Rey Javier, Larry Silva, Jimmy Javier, Jimmy Evangelista

KUNG FU  

*from the shooting script submitted to the Board of Censors in 1974

THE LOST MOVIE PROJECT: Piecing together the fragments of the Philippines' vanished cinema

NOTE by Andrew Leavold: Yet another Pinoy martial arts film from the initial rush of Bruce Lee-inspired movies. This time Trovador Ramos, head of Filipino-based martial arts organization TRACMA (hence his own stunt team TRACMA Boys) and, so the story goes, the only man to ever beat Bruce Lee in a sparring match, was top-billed along with former stuntman Rommel Valdez. Red Belt Master was entered in the 1974 Manila Film Festival and vanished soon afterwards; other than the newspaper ad, the only evidence we can find of the film is the outline in the shooting script submitted to the Board of Censors in 1974...

SYNOPSIS: Time was during the early part of the 1950s. In the far-flung areas, the rich and the powerful harass and oppress the poor - using their riches and power to amass wealth; and amass more wealth just to maintain their power and stature.

Our story is centered on a group of Igorot tribesfolk somewhere in a sleepy community in the Mountain Province, ruled by their chief, Lakay Bugan. 

A group of armed goons harass the tribe, the purpose is to frighten them into leaving their village. The leader of the goons is a rich landed gentry named Don Manolo - who wanted the place of the Igorots vacated so that his secret in a nearby coal mines will not easily be made vulgar. Actually, he is not just mining coal as what he wants the authorities to believe: He is mining diamonds in a secret compartment inside the coal mines caves, a mining operation which he hides so much from the government and the people around so he won't pay large sums of money in taxes plus the fact that the government may take over the mining operations from him.

In trying to frighten the Igorots, Don Manolo's armed goons hang Lakay Bugan from the branch of a tree. With this, he is successful.

Classified information reaches the office of Colonel Ramos who is head of an intelligence group about several cases wherein those who were said to have gone near the Black Mountain were not able to get back and were believed to be either lost or dead. The Colonel right then and there sends his top-calibre undercover agent to the place to conduct an investigation.

It so happens that a certain man called Cabigat also arrived in the area and finds his way in the wooded area until he comes to the newly-settled Igorot tribe who had fled their former settlement. Actually, Cabigat is the only son of the murdered tribal chieftain. He had left his tribe when he was at the age of 12 when he was brought along to Tokyo by a Japanese soldier just after the last World War. In Tokyo he served under a Japanese karate master and had learned the art himself by which he earned the 13th dan red belt championship honor.

The undercover agent - Rommel Valdez - arrives in the vicinity of the Black Mountain, pretending to be hunting for wild pigs. Goons chance upon him. They shoot him, wounding him on the breast, then maul him and left him for dead. Later that evening, some Igorot braves chance upon him and bring him with them to their new settlement where an Igorot maid named Lamya takes care of him to nourish him back to health.

Cabigat and Rommel come to know each other, the tribe being now under the leadership of the former. Cabigat wants to fit force against Don Manolo and his goons but Rommel convinces him about using peaceful means. But this becomes a vain attempt because the town mayor is in cohorts with the Don.

A series of incidents lead one day to the disguise of Cabigat and Rommel as miners and penetrate the mining camp where they are immediately unmasked. They have no other way but to fight to defend themselves. They discover the secret and are able to kill some of the goons and capture the rest. As for Don Manolo, he is brought by Rommel to justice.