HORROR MOVIES FOR CHRISTMAS: SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL --- NOT JUST A FRANCHISE

What people are not quite aware is that SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL as a movie franchise did not originate with Regal Films.

In 1984, the first of what evolved into one of the longest (if not the longest)  running movie franchise in the country was produced by Athena Productions and distributed by Regal Entertainment.   The film has become iconic --- even legendary, written by three giants of screenwriters of the time: Jose Carreon ("Baso"), Amado Lacuesta ("Pridyeder") and Uro de la Cruz ("Manananggal").

Moreover, each of these classic episodes was directed by equally iconic directors:  Emmanuel Borlaza megged "Baso", National Artist Ishmael Bernal did "Pridyeder" while Peque Gallaga handled "Manananggal".

For even if almost four decades had passed since its initial exhibition, the maiden presentation of SHAKE has become embedded in the collective consciousness of Philippine popular culture fans.  One cannot talk about Pinoy horror cinema without referring to Janice de Belen --- slithering in front a carnivorous refrigerator and bathed in its electric light or Irma Alegre flying across coconut trees with a young and bewildered Herbert Bautista ( playfully named Douglas in the episode in honor of the irreplaceable Douglas Quijano who put together the project) parrying the attack of a half-bodied visceral monster with a blessed pagaspas.

What was astounding about the first Shake movie was that it did not enjoy all the flourishes and advantages that technology offered at that time.  The effects were all practical without the aid of any computer (which in the mid 80's was merely a concept or a technological dream.)  This writer precisely remembers Don Escudero, production designer of the Manananggal episode narrate how Irma Alegre (with bat wings attached to her back) was mounted atop a jeep and shot from an angle as if she were flying.  Now that was innovation at its best.  

(Later on, Gallaga put Vangie Labalan to stand on a platform mounted on a crane to simulate that she was floating seen through the second floor window of a provincial house.  No rigging involved but just ... safety in balance.)

Since then, SHAKE has produced some of the most unforgettable adventures into local horror including monsters and creatures of the underworld that were redesigned to create innovative versions of fear.

Pinoy movie buffs can never forget the two Manilyn Reynes episodes in separate editions of SHAKE.  How can a timeline of the franchise be complete without her encounter with the lake creature Undin. Or perhaps how can one refer to terror in local cinema without mentioning the Aswang episode where Manilyn is lured into a town by her classmate, Anna Roces --- only to find out that she will be the sacrificial meal for the entire townfolk of cannibal monsters led by Rez Cortez and Vangie Labalan.

One can go on and on running through the years with annual editions of Shake mostly directed by Peque Gallaga.

It was Gallaga who casted Lilia Cuntapay in the Kris Aquino episode entitled Yaya ... or what about Janice de Belen who sought for her Ate (portrayed by Gina Alajar) as a living dead conjured by the late Subas Herrero and Armida Siguion-Reyna.  Or that episode with Eddie Gutierrez and Eric Quizon in an isolated house in Baguio where the ghosts of unborn babies from the scalpel of an abortionist come to haunt the residents.  Or what about that creature that lives atop a tree in a park across a typical middle class subdivision that seduces children ...

The list goes on and on as various editions of Shake Rattle and Roll have evolved through the years and in the hands of generations of filmmakers who represent the moment in popular culture's timeline when the production was concocted and released.   From a tradition that was started by Borlaza, Bernal and especially Gallaga, you have a roster of directors interpreting horror that is a reflection of the audience's changing taste and preferences.

Now you have Jerrold Tarrog, Richard Somes, Perci Intalan, Chris Martinez and so many other new generation directors continuing not merely a franchise but what has become a tradition.

Shake went into a hiatus for nine years and is back to reassert Regal Entertainment's interest and excitement in reviving the series.  But for the first time. Shake will not be a part of the Christmas Filipino movie festival: it is showing a few weeks earlier (side by side with another interesting film starring Maricel Soriano and Roderick Paulate) creating a festival feeling  all of its own.  

With Iza Calzado and a troop of new actors and actresses filling the cast of the trilogy, Shake has reinvented itself again to cater to the post-pandemic audiences and exploring new territories of horror.  

But as earlier mentioned, Shake has become more than just a franchise.  If something lasts for almost four decades, there must be something in these materials that find their places in the collective consciousness of the Filipino audiences.  And because this is so, Shake Rattle and Roll has ... above everything else ... become a tradition that is truly Filipino and curiously embedded in the very groundwork of our culture.