Stuff I've seen:
Gerry de Leon's "Lilet" is at times awkwardly done, with an overcomplicated Gothic plot (daughter comes back after years of imprisonment for killing her brother--who is her lover), and Celia Rodriguez is much too old for the role (it should be a twenty or eighteen year old nymphet, I think). But De Leon's Gothic style and sense of atmosphere is there, some of the editing and images are striking. And this may be the equivalent in his career to Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom," or Alfred Hitchcock's "Frenzy"--the film where he wears his perversions on his sleeve.
"Fe, Esperanza, Caridad" is a Nora Aunor showcase, with three directors involved.
"Fe" is competently directed by Cirio Santiago, and is basically a warmed over version of "A Star is Born" (Nora will have retold this far more successfully in her "Kastilyong Buhangin."
"Esperanza" is surpisingly light and charming (she plays housewife to a likeable Jay Ilagan)--in fact, it's the first Lamberto Avellana film I've ever liked, and the first time I've seen Nora be effortlessly funny.
"Caridad" is amazing: Gerry De Leon does a breathtaking sequence of Nora as a nun, running away with a gardener (Ronaldo Valdez, who else?).
Then it turns out that the gardener is The Devil Himself, and the segment plunges into purest schlock: he wears a Count Dracula costume and a medallion that looks like it was lifted from John Travolta in Saturday Nigth Fever. His bedroom (you might call it his pad) could have been used as a disco (you can guess Satan liked to party down).
And then--it recovers! Nora has sex with Satan, then tempts him into good; De Leon's stylized acting and dialogue (it's always been that way, it seems) actually fits the metaphysical drama unfolding, and you end up feeling some sympathy for all the parties involved. Amazing piece of film--as much for the way it spectacularly goes off the rail, then somehow comes back on track.
"Banaue"--well, what can I say, except De Leon was old when he did this. Like Annaud with "Quest for Fire," or Boorman with "The Emerald Forest," he tries to film primitive people and with disastrous results. Everyone speaks literary dialogue that just kills the drama, some of the spears look obviously tinfoil, and De Leon has this habit (you see sometimes in "Lilet") of smearing his lenses with Vaseline--in "Banaue's" case, colored Vaseline apparently, and all the time. The fight scenes towards the end are expertly shot and cut, if awkwardly staged.
Mario O'Hara's "Bed Sins" is a mess, but a fascinating one. Sarsi Emmanuelle plays a high class hooker (of course) with a messy life--she has a customer obsessed with her, a would-be boyfriend who hates her, and a best friend who seems religiously psycopathic.
O'Hara has a Gothic style I think he inherited from De Leon, and his editing is always enjoyable, but this time the movie looks--flat. It's a cheapo production for Seiko films, and there are a few good setpieces (a gunfight, some of the sex scenes, and an ending that is disturbing, to say the least), and it has O'Hara's patented dark sense of irony, but something's missing. Sarsi's pretty good here, though; Liza Lorena as the relgious fanatic friend is amazing.
I saw the uncut version--graphic shots of cunnilingus and of fellatio inserted, not as blatantly as I was led to believe, and apparently without O'Hara's permission. That makes this film more explicit than even the legendary Scorpio Nights (but I'm told many of Seiko's films then were like this...).
Finally, Efren C. Pinon's "The Death of Satan" is one of the most bizarre films I've ever seen, with Ramon Revilla duking it out with, yes The Devil Himself. Heads spin, decomposing bodies jump out of the water, a cheek is torn off...but maybe the strangest scene in the film is Revilla trying to deal with a cageful of totally naked women (breasts, buttocks, pubic hair and all) that he suddenly freed. Weird, and this from someone who finds Lynch and Cronenberg comforting.
