“Some cuts were never meant to be restored” goes the tagline of Evolve Studios’ Posthouse, an upcoming horror film and Nikolas Red’s debut as a feature director. The line refers to the movie’s subject, a cursed silent film, but it also alludes to themes of generational trauma.
Fresh off the release of Lilim, he and his brother, filmmaker Mikhail Red, are gearing up to release their next project on August 20 to Filipino audiences. Posthouse is also set to be screened in this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival between August 29 and September 7.
Posthouse sees film editor Cyril (Sid Lucero) taking on his father’s work to restore the country’s first silent horror film with the help of his estranged daughter Rhea (Bea Binene), an aspiring filmmaker. The trailer shows the two haunted by many things: their strained father-daughter relationship, Cyril’s childhood trauma, and a mananaggal.
“It’s a film about legacy,” the Posthouse director tells Rolling Stone Philippines.
The story started out with a lone editor working in a post-production house, but Red realized that it needed something the audience could connect to. “Kailangan mo ng isa pang character to accompany him. Someone that would make him more vulnerable in a way, someone he had to protect. That became the daughter part.”
From there, the script underwent consultations through script labs and workshops. Red admits that his family background — his father and brother both filmmakers — inspired part of the story, but was also a point of insecurity. “Whenever I discussed with my mentors, with them being aware of my background, they would always kind of pry na parang, ‘Do you think you’re projecting your own experiences? [Rhea] as a daughter trying to live up to her father’s name?”
“At first, I was kind of in denial,” he says. “But I guess the more you engage with the script, slowly, I realized maybe I’m imparting a bit of myself to Rhea.”
Silent Films, Lost Media, and Video Games
The themes recall the kind of horror that comes with revisiting and calling on one’s past demons, literally and figuratively. Think the Silent Hill franchise, or Mike Flanagan’s Netflix shows like Midnight Mass or The Haunting of Hill House. But what sets Posthouse apart from the kind of horror we’ve seen in Philippine cinema as of late is its jumping off point: lost media and silent films, particularly Jose Nepomuceno’s 1927 silent horror film Ang Manananggal.
Red points to other pieces of media about people watching horror films, such as The Ring (“‘Yong pinaka-GOAT of that genre,” Red remarks) and Sinister. In discussing influences, he and Mikhail also name dropped video games like Home Safety Hotline and P.T., the playable teaser for the cancelled 2014 game Silent Hills.
Red recalls discovering his father’s collection of silent horror films as a child. “In that set, there was Nosferatu [from 1922], ‘yong sequel ng The Golem [from 1915], ‘yong lumang The Phantom of the Opera [from 1925],” he says. “It opened me to this universe of horror creatures.”
Drawing on the monsters of the mentioned films, the director said he’d consider Posthouse a creature flick — a label justified by the manananggal seen floating through the halls of the titular posthouse in the trailer.
“Of course, in this film, it’s more complicated than that. Nakaka-traverse [ang manananggal] ng worlds. Medyo ethereal siya.”
When asked what makes horror the best vehicle to tackle forgotten silent films and lost cultural memory, Red says that he found silent films eerie as a child. “At that time, wala man lang akong concept kung ano ‘yong silent film,” he says. “When I was looking at it, I was just so weirded out how it was black and white, without sound. It was so eerie for me.”
He added that the old silent films were windows into the afterlife, so it only made sense to incorporate them into the horror film. “Maybe it’s the thought that everyone involved in that film is already dead… The very idea of finding something very ancient that was lost is also scary. So it’s where I was veered towards.”
