Misterio de la Noche (Mystery of the Night)

“In the time of colonization and oppression, a dark tale will be born. Out of misery, rage and hypocrisy, darkness will feed on the beaming light. In a small village, an enchanted forest carries fear, as spirits live there. They protect the forest against evil lurkers. Many never came out.” Thus opens this tale, on an ominous chant, of the Spanish-ruled Philippines of the 1900s: a time of tyranny, in which the Spanish clergy and the aristocracy went to great lengths to cover up their numerous and unspeakable misdeeds and crimes. A woman, raped and banished to the woods on a full moon’s night, sees her newborn child swallowed by animalistic shadows lurking in the foliage. Raised by the forest’s mysterious ghouls and demons — boars, wild cats and a many-eyed sage — the child grows. It experiences love, then heartbreak, and then fulfils the tale, changing into something larger-than-life, a mythical creature… a woman scorned.

1800 colonial Philippines. During the time of Spanish tyranny and oppression, a woman raised in the enchanted woods by nymphs experiences love for the first time from a man from town. When she is later betrayed and experiences heartbreak, hell hath no fury indeed like a woman scorned as she she transforms into the mythical Aswang out to avenge her pain and let the man suffer forever.

Director: Adolfo Alix Jr.
Writers: Rody Vera (play), Rody Vera (screenplay)
Stars: Solenn Heussaff, Benjamin Alves, Gina Alajar, Elizabeth Oropesa, Rosanna Roces, Allan Paule, Menggie Cobarrubias, Mercedes Cabral, Radha, Antonette Garcia, Mariella Castillo, Neil Perez, Angeli Nicole Sanoy, Sachzna Laparan, Audrie Alcantara