Cinco (Filipino 2010) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A horror anthology where each story focuses on a part of the body.

Review: I'm not really sure why they went with calling this "Cinco." Sure, there are five stories, but "lima" is five in tagalog, is it not? Anyway, I liked the attempt at a unifying theme among the stories, but none are particularly good or memorable. There is no wraparound, however, the ending of the fifth story does link back to the first; I definitely appreciated the stories coming full circle in that regard. One thing that really took me out of each story was unnecessary humorous moments; the tone shifts too much midway or starts off comedic and tries to become serious. This is an ongoing issue I have with Filipino horror movies in general, but maybe others can appreciate it more.

Braso (arm): The first story kicks us off with three guys going through some kind of hazing which involves being locked in a morgue. The guy leading this looks way too old to be college-aged but, sure, let's go with it. After delivering forced banter, the guys come across a severed arm that is undead somehow, and it tries to, seemingly, kill them. Giving in, and running away from the morgue, the three guys leave the leader and his flunkies to rot. The leader then decides he wants to fuck his busted girlfriend in the morgue...because why not, right? Unfortunately for him, the arm, now reduced to a hand by the three guys, magically gets lodged in his throat and kills him. And that's it. This really wasn't the best start, but if they wanted to tie it all together I suppose it had to be this way.

Paa (foot): This is probably the best story of the bunch, but that isn't necessarily saying much. A poor woman attends the funeral of a little girl who died recently; the little girl lost a foot as well when she was run over. It's obvious the woman was responsible, but the segment does a commendable job in setting up the circumstances that led to the death. Shortly after this, the woman is haunted by the little girl's ghost who afflicts the woman with a disease that begins to eat away at her foot. The woman appears to have stolen shoes from the little girl in order to give to her own daughter in an upcoming award ceremony. The woman tries to return the shoes, but the ghost is more interested in stealing the woman's daughter as payback. Eventually we learn that the woman was feeling depressed, because her daughter had worn out shoes and would presumably look foolish during the award ceremony. Unable to afford new ones, the woman saw the little girl's mother nonchalantly buying expensive shoes with little concern over the price. Feeling as though they wouldn't be at a loss, the woman stole the shoes and ran away. Unintentionally, the little girl chased afterward and was hit by a car in the pursuit; this was followed by a second car running her over and ripping off her foot. Deciding to show forgiveness, the ghost lets both the woman and her daughter live, however, the woman lost her foot due to the infection. Eh, she got off easy. Just be glad you didn't steal from Samara, Mimiko, or that brat from "The Locker."

Mata (eye): I have no idea what the hell was going on with this segment. The main highlight was seeing Maja Salvador who played Joya in "Sukob." Still waiting on that "Sukob 2" by the way. A couple is hanging out at a bar or whatever the hell when the girlfriend wants to go home. The boyfriend is such a huge bitch-boy my goodness. These two are engaged or something, but, hun, are you serious? This guy has a neck tattoo for fuck's sake! When driving backward down a one-way street, the two come across a, rightfully, angry driver who wants them to move. The boyfriend shoots the guy in the eye, and they move on like no big deal. Surprise, the ghost of the driver haunts them, but, this time around, the girlfriend finds herself in a kind of time loop. She tries to change things each time, but the outcome comically stays the same. At the end the girlfriend decides she's had it up to here with these mother fucking neck tattoos on this mother fucking douchebag and blows him away. Believing the time loop to be over, the segment ends with the girlfriend apparently dying to the boyfriend's ghost now. Uh huh. Well whatever.

Mukha (face): This could have easily been the best story of the five, but they chose to start things off with slapstick levels of comedy for some odd reason. Also, were they trying to say this is Christmas time? So a crazy bitch boss fires the janitor, because he's the janitor and who else do you fire in a cliched story? A few employees repay the bitch by tricking her into believing the janitor committed suicide. They torment her around the office with relentless photos of the guy and wear printed pages of his face. The bitch does figure it out when one of the employees' phone rings alerting them to the fact that the janitor really did commit suicide after all. At the end, the bitch is trapped in an elevator with the real ghost...and is more scared...I guess. The ghost doesn't do anything so what's the point? Right then. Let's move on.

Puso (heart): Closing us out is the tale of a deformed woman, living in some kind of carnival, who just wants to be loved. Don't feel too bad for her though as the material is not taken seriously at all. In fact, the woman is continually berated by a stereotypical gay guy. I think I could have tolerated this segment's outlandish nature more if it weren't so unoriginal, the longest entry, and placed at the end. So the woman has a crush on a guy who works at the carnival, but he's getting married to some hot chick. Assisting the woman in fulfilling her dreams is, like, the resident psychic or whatever who concocts a love potion. Oh, gee, wow, I wonder where this plot line is going? Surprising no one, the potion makes the guy become psychotic with his love for the deformed woman. The only change they make is that the guy transforms into a kind of ghoul as well. After the guy kills half the carnival people who gets in his way, the woman realizes something is not right with her loverboy. The two give chase until the guy is trapped in a ditch with dirt buried on top of him. This doesn't fully shut him down as his arm reaches out to grab the woman, but she cuts it off with a shovel. Now we come back to the first segment as that is the undead arm. The arm kills the woman, and it's obviously implied that this is how the two ended up in the morgue together. If only the whole movie had the kind of imagination the film ends with.

Overall, the stories aren't completely terrible, but they aren't exactly good either. In fairness, the segments are actually presented competently--they're simply lackluster in storytelling. Plus, the production value was better than I thought it would be so I'll cut them slack in that regard. There was too much mediocrity spread around when they could have capitalized on the better ideas. Linking all of the stories was a great approach, but it's not accomplished meaningfully; supposedly you see the carnival guy with the undead arm in each story, but I missed it. Maybe with more cohesion between the directors or writers this could have been worthwhile, but, as it stands, this is essentially a pass. If you just want to check out the "Paa" segment that would probably be the best move.

Notable Moment: During the Paa segment when we learn what led to the little girl dying and losing her foot. The segment isn't as moving as it could have been, but I liked the way the series of events unfold.

Final Rating: 5.5/10