Movie Review: Prime Cruz' "The Debutantes" (2017)

Sue Ramirez, Miles Ocampo, Chanel Morales, Michelle Vito and Jane De Leon
star in Prime Cruz' "The Debutantes"

Director Prime Cruz is ready to take a new challenge. This time, he's taking the responsibility of giving audiences frights and chills as he gives us The Debutantes (2017), his first straight-forward horror movie to date. Prime Cruz has been known for his award-winning and critically acclaimed romance stories, from Sleepless (2015), Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B (2016) and Can We Still Be Friends (2017). Although he had experience in the horror genre before after directing the web series The Complex and the romance-gore film Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B, this will be his first full-length horror movie. Tagged as a teen color horror film, it stars Sue Ramirez, Miles Ocampo, Chanel Morales, Michelle Vito and Jane De Leon and is produced by Regal Films.

Screenshots from the trailer

The film follows a shy and weird-looking girl named Kate (played by Sue Ramirez). She's always alone at school and is distant with everyone else. Until one day, her classmate Lara (Miles Ocampo) approaches her and asks if she could her her study Math as she is failing the subject. Kate immediately agrees to help her, and she ended up being close to her. In the meantime, Lara's friends, Jenny (Jane De Leon), Candice (Michelle Vito) and Shayne (Chanel Morales) finds pleasure in bullying her. They staged a prank during Jenny's birthday party, embarrassing Kate in front of the whole student body. Soon, Kate starts having nightmares about Jenny, Candice and Shayne all meeting horrendous deaths. Can she and Lara save them before it's too late? Who (or what) is behind these deaths?

As you can notice, the film follows a typical slasher set-up with these characters meeting deaths one by one. The film also pumps up the story with classic horror movie tropes and stereotypes, from the rich and bratty It girls of the campus bullying a shy, nerdy girl. I guess it was Prime Cruz' intention to make the film as campy as it could be. The film doesn't try to make itself a genre-bending film. Instead, it's obviously aiming for the opposite. And this is what makes the film more interesting. Instead of putting numerous twists and turns in the film, the story is pretty much straight-forward to the point that it's predictable. This makes the film more fun since we already know that something is very wrong from the beginning of the film and the audience is left anticipating a final pay-off.

But since we are looking at a movie following a typical slasher format, we are of course looking forward to some pretty sick kills. Unfortunately, this is the part that the film failed to pull off completely. Although the first death was staged pretty nicely, the ones that followed weren't as grandiose nor inspired. I've seen a lot of horror movies and those deaths have been used several times in one or two of those films before. If the film was aiming for camp, it should aim for more theatrical or extravagant kills which is a rule in the horror genre. Also, I noticed that there scenes in the trailer that were not actually in the movie itself which got me a bit distracted as I was waiting for those scenes to show up in the movie while watching it. There were also some questions that kept me wondering like what happened to Kate's cousin and aunt, why the demonic being following them can control social networking sites to scare the shit out of them or where the hell are their parents?

Luckily, the film has an effective cast who helped pull off the whole movie with flying colors (the film is literally boasting with colors). Sue Ramirez who plays Kate was good in portraying the shy and aloof girl ala-Carrie. Chanel Morales, Michelle Vito and Jane De Leon who played the It girls who were responsible for bullying Kate were quite convincing. Most of their performances may come as a bit over-the-top, but since the film is aiming for camp, they worked perfectly to the film's benefit. Miles Ocampo, who played Lara, I guess is the one who really stood out in this movie. Her portrayal of the perfect good girl was really effective and believable. I was really rooting for her during the final act.

To it's credit, the film boasts some really gorgeous cinematography and lightning. This is how one will know that a film is directed by Prime Cruz. He always know how to play with lights and colors, and he played them really well in this movie. It somehow reminds me of Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) and Chito S. Rono's Feng Shui (2004). I've never seen a local horror movie this colorful, fulfilling it's promise of a teen color horror. Also, the film's final moments was one of the most thrilling and heart-pounding finale I've seen in a local horror movie this year so far. Those final minutes of the film did put me on the edge of my seat and it deserves some additional points for that.

The film does succeed in it's aim to be a campy and fun horror film. Though it's a bit predictable (with one of it's character's big twist being way too obvious from the very first frame where she showed up), it's still undeniably entertaining. Just watch it as a straight-forward horror film and you'll definitely enjoy it.


Rating: ✰✰✰✰ of 5
"The Debutantes" (2017) directed by Prime Cruz, starring Sue Ramirez, Miles Ocampo, Chanel Morales, Michelle Vito and Jane De Leon