THE FILMSOC REVIEWS: THE DIPLOMAT HOTEL (Christopher Ad Castillo, 2013)

Written and Directed by: Christopher Ad Castillo

86 mins.

Reviewed by: Jerunia Fuertes

RATING: 2 out of 5 FILM REELS

The film tells the story of Veronica Lansang, a once popular reporter who took a controversial footage that caused her career to fade in a snap. Wanting to come back to the reporting scene, Veronica accepted a job that no one else would want to take. Veronica and her team were tasked to spend one night at the infamous hotel that lies atop Baguio City, The Diplomat Hotel. Veronica is eager to finish her documentary feature on the establishment’s dark, horrid and bloody past, its previous owner’s secrets and the reason why no one has inhabited the establishment since then, however, as the night deepens, several uncharted and disturbing events happen to Veronica and her team.

The Diplomat hotel’s plot isn’t very far from your usual mainstream horror movie since it features a group exploring a haunted place and has strange things happening to them along the way. However, the movie seemed very promising since the location of the shoot was an actual haunted place in Baguio City so I thought that the eerie feeling of the place would add to the authenticity of the ‘horror’ element in the movie. Also, the cast was quite promising too, having Mon Confiado along with Posas stars Art Acuña and Nico Antonio in it, the execution would be quite something to see.

Having said that, it is really sad that the movie was not able to exploit neither the place nor the actors’ full potential; the ‘fear’ element was blatantly given by the place itself however it did not push through because of the weak script, poor acting and shaky editing.

It was puzzling that ‘poor acting’ was included because most of the actors have delivered outstanding performances in other films that they’ve starred in. Mon Confiado is a very effective ‘kontrabida’ or bad guy and both Art Acuña and Nico Antonio have delivered very effectively in the movie Posas, an entry in Cinemalaya 2012. It felt like the genuineness of each character was lost because of over stylizing things. The wardrobe was a little too spot on and in your face which is far from reality. Sound assistants don’t always wear big headsets when they’re not on a job and makeup artists and stylists don’t always look overdone especially when they are going to a location shoot.

Gretchen Barreto’s acting also failed to convey the ‘powerful’ news reporter type. Sure, she did look the part, but she didn’t come close to playing the part. However, during the scenes where she was walking the corridors of the haunted establishment alone, genuine fear would be felt which may have been contributed by the fact that Gretchen was really afraid of the place-  almost the reason for her not to accept the role.

The dialogue between characters was rather weak because there was never a moment which gave a huge ‘bam!’ The script was dull and anticlimactic and somewhat repetitive. It gave the feeling that it was rehearsed and unnatural in some parts, like when Veronica was begging for her job back, she was pleading but there wasn’t any kick to it, which supposedly has that feeling because an aggressive news reporter was begging, imagine Miss Cheche Lazaro having to beg for a job, which was how it should feel.

The editing was a bit of an issue too because it is very noticeable that several shots were cut and spliced into another scene and every so often, the voice goes out of sync. It also felt like they have given too much time on certain scenes that would make the movie fine even without that much exposure of the scene. The long scenes may have had given a monotonous feeling to the movie. However, the musical scoring did a pretty decent job on setting the mood for the film, also the long ‘silent’ at the beginning elicited several reactions from the audience making them anticipate for what was to come.

The Diplomat Hotel might be one of the forgettable films in Cinemalaya this year because it didn’t very much explore the horror and suspense genre. Aside from tackling a pretty common story line in horror films, the scaring tactics, suspense build up and style is pretty much what we see in regular horror films. Having a location shoot in an authentic haunted place was pretty intruiging and makes it more realistic and believable, giving the filmmakers advantage to explore all the potential of the place and the movie as well. However, the execution may have not given justice to the advantage that they already have.