Nikolas Red’s debut film, Posthouse dives into the history of Filipino cinema with a dose of horror. It all started when Cyril, an editor, discovered the film reel of the first Filipino silent horror directed by his great-grandfather, H. N. Anderson. His late father had left it for him, and he had specifically instructed him to burn it. Cyril shared a complex relationship with his father, Edd, so he wasn’t keen on doing exactly what his father had asked of him. Edd had become so obsessed with restoring his grandfather’s film that it drove him to insanity. Cyril always felt the pressure to prove his worth, and working as a commercial editor wasn’t really his dream. He decided to finish what his father couldn’t, and soon he experienced a maddening obsession to restore the complete film. Did Cyril succeed? And what happened to the film? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Why did the ghost haunt the Anderson family?
We eventually discover that there was a painful story associated with the first Filipino horror film. This is, of course, fiction; however, it is true that “Ang Manananggal” was the first Filipino horror film, but unfortunately, the film was lost in 1927 and has never been recovered. Coming back to the story, Cyril’s daughter, Rea, an aspiring editor, was elated when her father announced that he would be working on restoring the film. She decided to help him and learned the basics of film editing from her father. It was a fun experience at first, but soon it took a dark turn. She noticed that her father was becoming restless and obsessive. He scolded her for every mistake she made and became frantic when they couldn’t find a missing film reel. She’d heard that her grandfather too went through a similar outburst when he couldn’t find the missing final scene. She’d never seen her father like this. He behaved aggressively with his associate, Jeff, and also his uncle, who advised him to just get rid of the film. He mentioned that the film had destroyed his family and he mustn’t pursue it, but Cyril refused to listen to anyone.
Rea decided to read a little about the history associated with the film since there was clearly something eerie about it. She discovers that the actor, Stella Estuar, who’d starred in the 1927 film, had spent most of her life in a psych ward. Rea found a chilling recording from her time at the psych ward. Stella blamed Rea’s grandfather for ruining her and cursed his entire bloodline and promised to hunt each one of them down. Presumably Stella was abused during the making of the film by H.N. Anderson, and she never recovered from the incident. She’d mentioned that ‘something followed her from set and slept inside her walls’; perhaps it was the shame, the guilt, and the rage that she carried within her that gradually started to wear her down. One can also assume that maybe the dark creature that followed Stella was a manananggal, and she was constantly haunted by the creature until one day she killed herself. Maybe she’d cursed the Anderson family because starring in the film had ruined her life. As the film progresses, we discover the dark secrets of the Anderson family. Even if one chooses to believe in the supernatural, the film hints at a very real possibility. Perhaps it was the supernatural that brought the worst out in these men.
Who Killed Cyril’s Mother?
As a child, Cyril was abused by his father, and he never really healed from the trauma. He remembered his father blamed him for the death of his mother, and he lived with this constant guilt. Cyril remembered walking into the basement and finding his mother’s lifeless body. Edd was an abusive husband, and his wife had wanted to leave him. One night, when he figured that she was about to leave, he murdered her and reassured Cyril that from now on, his mother would always be with him. Edd had turned into the manananggal; it can be interpreted that he became so obsessed with the evil creature that it drastically changed him as a person, or he had always been a monster and the manananggal just helped him channel his hatred and cruelty without feeling guilty about it. Cyril’s father fled from the country after committing the murder; he’d later settled in the United States. He died by suicide; his room was dark and eerie. The cops had also recovered film reels from his room, suggesting that obsession had only gotten worse with time. Edd had also sent cryptic mails to his son that suggest that the evil spirit continued to lurk around him and perhaps killed him because he just couldn’t live with the constant fear and horror.
What happened to Rea?
Rea tried her best to reconnect with her father, but clearly it didn’t work. Cyril used to be an alcoholic, but Rea assumed that since he was sober now, maybe she could learn a thing or two from him. But after witnessing his violent outbursts, she figured maybe her mother was right; he wasn’t safe to be around. As the obsession with the film restoration peaked, there appeared a manananggal in the post-production studio. It killed Cyril’s uncle, the security guard, and also Jeff. Later, when Rea’s mother came to her rescue, the monster got to her as well. So was the manananggal real? Given the shift in Cyril’s behavior, it is evident that there was an evil force that was tied to the film. Cyril submitted to the force and held Rea captive. He claimed that he had finally finished the film, and he went on to express his frustration as an editor who worked in the commercial space. He blamed Rea for ruining his life; he stated that she was the reason why he had to settle for less because he had bills to pay. He criticized his daughter for not being a good film student and asked her a trick question related to the Kuleshov effect. He asked if there are three frames—the kid, the tragedy, and the monster—in what order would she arrange them? It becomes evident that Cyril never coped with the death of his mother, and the image of his father as the monster continued to haunt him.
In Posthouse’s ending, the manananggal attacked Rea, but she managed to stab it. A supernatural creature couldn’t be killed, so it was quite evident that there was a human being pretending to be the manananggal. As it turned out, Cyril had put on the manananggal costume and attempted to murder his daughter. Cyril wasn’t himself; he was possessed by a dark force that compelled him to do things that he never thought of even in his worst nightmares. Cyril never wanted to hurt his daughter, and even though he might have regretted not getting the recognition he’d always hoped for, he surely wasn’t someone who would blame his daughter for it. The dark force feasted on his victim’s insecurities and destroyed the people around them and eventually drained them to the point that they didn’t have any other choice but to kill themselves. Maybe it was Stella’s curse or a supernatural entity that had tied itself to the film, but regardless, if anyone from the Anderson family came in contact with the film, their lives would be destroyed. In his dying moments, Cyril begged Rea to destroy the film; he feared that she would meet the same fate as he did, and he knew that destroying the film reels was the only way to escape the vicious cycle. While Cyril shared a hateful relationship with his father, he had reasons to not do what he had asked of him. But Rea had seen the bright, happy side of her father, and she had realized that he wasn’t himself when he turned aggressive. So she chose to do as her father had asked of her.
Did Rea destroy the film?
Posthouse’s ending suggests that Rea burned the film strips. She knew how important the film was to the history of Filipino cinema, but she’d also realized how deeply the curse of the film was intertwined with her family. Anyone who’d tried to restore it was pushed to the edge, and she decided to end the tragedy already. Rea struggled to process the death of her parents as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. Just when she thought she got rid of the curse, she discovered that a segment of the film that she’d shot on her phone for her social media had been uploaded. She had tried to upload it before, but she faced connectivity issues, and just when she was busy getting rid of every possible trace of the film, the video was uploaded. Thousands of people had already seen the video, which suggests that Rea will be answerable to the film community for destroying the first Filipino horror film. Also, the ending hints at the possibility that the curse might not have ended with Cyril. Since more and more people have now virtually come in contact with the film, maybe the dark entity will also haunt them? Well, the film leaves room for speculations.
