PASAHERO (Philippines 2024) - MINI REVIEW
Would you do nothing if you saw something?
On a late-night train ride, seven passengers watch on and do nothing as a woman is assaulted by knife point in the next cabin. Her screams echoing through the train.
One month later, the spirit of the woman, haunts all seven. She wants her revenge on her attacker and the seven people who did nothing to help her. Feeling guilty, one of the passengers takes it upon herself to help the spirit seek justice before she is her next victim.
Viva Films strikes again with another horror film that looks at morals and values. We’ve had Livescream which looked at the streaming culture and quest for fame at all costs, and now we have Pasahero - which translates to Passengers - which deals with the phenomenon of people standing around doing nothing when something terrible is happening around them.
And the movie lays on that message nice and thick with bible passages, Desmond Tutu quotes and snippets of horrible viral videos of kidnappings and assaults.
The movie asks the question: are we a society of passengers, who put our heads down and hope that nothing bad happens to us, but yet expect someone to come to our aid when the shoe is on the other foot?
Moral story aside, the movie can be an uncomfortable film to watch at times, thanks in part to the harrowing sound effect track. The echo of the woman being raped on the train haunts the memories of the passengers, culminating in dream like flashback sequences where they relive the moment in various stages. And yet they still do nothing.
Even more frustrating is how they refuse to help the people around them. Our protagonist Angel, an artist, refuses to help the little girl being abused by her parents until its almost too late. Another passenger, a well-off photography student, brags about taking the train like a poor person, but refuses to help a homeless man who just wants something to eat.
It’s themes like this that are littered throughout the whole movie and are about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but they do get their point across.
Disappointingly - well for me anyway - this joins the Viva Films library of films that feature stunning lead actresses who don’t strip off, very much against the Viva Films M.O. but is becoming quite common now after titles like the funny but flawed My Zombabe, school horror Martia featuring two of the women in this film and the terrible Kuman Thong / Black Baby Magic. It’s probably more frustrating when you realise that most of the cast has been in those softcore Viva Max films too.
But you’re not watching this movie for the boobs, you’re watching it for the horror. And the movie just succeeds as a horror film. “Just” is a bit of an unfair word in this scenario, but essentially the movie tries too hard at times and not hard enough in others. For example, the demon/spirit make up is almost there, but just feels like a generic demon from every other Filipino possession film.
But where I felt the movie excelled was in some of the death scenes, which are brutal. The opening ambush and murder scene of Angel’s parents sets the tone of the film and at least implants a reason for the audience to understand why she is skeptical of helping strangers. The death scene of the little girl, that’s just brutal. It reminds me of one of the death scenes from the Taiwanese film Karma or from one of the Final Destination films, and it continues this Asian horror movie trend of killing off kids. And I like it.
Even with all its flaws, its soft colour grading that hooks the film back to the Viva Max softcore library style, the awful screeching, the hard-hammered social commentary and cast of horribly unlikeable characters, the movie did something that most others in the genre failed to do: it kept my attention for long periods of time without me resorting to scrolling on my phone. That’s always a win in my books.
This gets 3 ghosts out of 5 for being a typically above average Asian horror film with a good-looking cast and an important social message.
Genre Horror
Director Roman Perez Jr.
Starring Bea Binene, Louise delos Reyes, Yumi Garcia
Original Title Pasahero
Alternative Title Passengers
Country of Origin Philippines
Release Date 30 October 2024
