Movie Review in Bullets: Ang Pagsanib Kay Leah Dela Cruz
Starstruck alumna and constant label-checker Sarah Lahbati plays Ruth - a cop who's not in active service due to an incident that will be revealed towards the end of the movie.
Because of this incident, she is always angry. She wants to be left alone. She has recurring nightmares. She abuses pills, walks around the house in panties, cuts herself, gets strange phone calls on hey MyPhone --- her life is a mess but her kilay is always on fleek.
Despite Ruth being an asshole to everyone (she scoffs at everyone she speaks with, including the tindera who has Royal Tru Orange in a plastic bag ready, one second after she ordered it), a teenaged boy named Gabriel successfully makes human-to-human interaction with her. That teenaged boy is played by upcoming pop superstar Julian Trono. Don't know him? Wiki him.
The pair walks to the house of the Dela Cruz family where they saw creepy Leah (played by Shy Carlos) freakishly standing on the balcony. Leah looks at them devilishly, climbs on the railings and jumps to (presumably) her death. But the pair only reacts when Leah's body met the concrete pavement. But Ruth seems to have checked the label! She notice the blood and a strange figure on the balcony.
Ruth develops interest in the case of Leah, especially when initial investigation states that it was Leah who could have disfigured her yaya, found bloodied inside Leh's bedroom. So she asks to be reinstated into the force.
The yaya is in the ICU but looks like anyone can come over her room.
There's something really strange about the nun who came to pray for Leah and whisper things to yaya in coma. Ruth barges in, yaya wakes up and... yaya you have a few seconds to speak to Ruth and you chose to speak in cryptic messages.
Ruth catches a few words and she researches it a public library that's so public, it doesn't have budget for lights and librarians. Ruth probably doesn't have load to research news clippings via the internet.
Fun part: the dark shadowy figure with burning eyes is also in the library! What could she probably needed to brush up on? Naturally, Ruth sees her and they engaged in a fun chase. Mostly the human chasing the dark entity. I think Ruth scared her too.
Ruth's superb research skills leads her crack the case and track down the people connected to yaya's cryptic message. She confronts two people, but I will not say which two people.
While all these are happening, Leah wakes up to take care of stuff (no spoiler). Mrs. Dela Cruz wakes up in the hospital room with an empty Leah bed but she does not panic. Instead, she looks for the TV remote to turn off the TV. Sayang ang kuryente.
Death/s by the tail-end of the movie. Some blairwitch-y woods playing with the characters senses.
A diabolical force possesses a girl and what does this force do? Make Leah climb a tree and tell some chismis. No floating, puking, 360-degree head turns and body contortions. What a wimp.
And the priest, played by 1/3 of Apo Hiking Society Jim Paredes (known as chief dilawan to the Ka-DDS lot) wasn't even able to perform an exorcism.
Everything gets explained towards the end, through a series of flashbacks and realizations. Which is brilliant. No need for an all-knowing character to tie them all together for the audience.
In the end, we find out that the movie is not really about the pagsanib kay Leah Dela Cruz.
There's a demon in all of us. (KIND OF A SPOILER, BUT IT'S IN VIVA ENTERTAINMENT'S YOUTUBE UPLOAD OF THE TRAILER)
Just go watch it while you can.
We should support horror movies that have respect for the audience.
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