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When you go to the Philippines, there's no shortage of big Catholic churches, processions, and proceedings. Some foreigners find themselves surprised and confused! But if you're someone who's been living here since forever, like me, then you'll just get used to it. It's so ever-present that my mom and my dad are devoutly Catholic, and while that's caused us some conflict, I've gotten used to it. It's unsurprising then, that there are tons of movies and dramas that are only about Catholicism and how much people love it. I gotta tell you the story, then, of when I tuned into one of the many Filipino soap opera channels years ago, and saw Susmaryosep! airing.
Susmaryosep! is a really freaking weird soap opera. I don't know if I can even call it that. It's like somebody's Arthouse film escaped from College of St. Benilde and ended up TV, airing on some channel that barely gets any ratings. It looked normal at first when I was watching it, but the writers were really really into portraying Catholicism as something more evil than people want to see it as. It was so strange seeing something like that on TV. I could guess why it ended up with no ratings and basically cancelled. It wasn't the first episode I watched, and when I did some digging (which was weirdly hard for this show), I realized I already watched the 32nd episode. The TV show almost felt bipolar, swinging from extremes of angels and kids having fun to suddenly dark atmospheres and strange, droining sounds. I'm big on cheap scares (huge fan of Shake, Rattle, & Roll), but this felt actually unsettling. Did I stumble upon something nobody was meant to watch?
Now, I wanted to talk about it because I got lucky. I was able to watch a rerun of it. I never thought they'd even do that. I'm gonna try and describe the first episode to you and tell you my thoughts. I asked like a dozen people if they've ever seen it, and nobody was able to say yes. It's so weird having seen a show that only you have memory of. So I want you guys to walk through it with me, because it's such a trip.
It starts with this kid named Jesus, and he talks about how much he really liked the sermon at his church. A kid who likes sermons? Talk about crazy! But then they talk about a "Judas" hiding in their village, and his best friend tries to catch a fake Judas Iscariot by playing children's games (I think it was mafia) with the adults, but obviously, they think they're just a bunch of stupid kids. Seems normal so far, right? But the weird part is when the kid's parents come to pick him up. The camera and the framing gets so disorienting, and the whole show suddenly turns into a horror flick. The kid's crying while the mom's berating him for being stupid and "not Catholic enough" or something. And I'm just sitting here, watching this, like, confused. I think I was actually scared for a moment. And it just didn't stop. They bring the kid home, and while it gets funny again for a bit, they just start fighting again. I'd say it's even disturbing, and you'd be disturbed too if you saw it. They fight again and they leave the kid.
I think the weirdest part was the ending. The kid kinda has no choice but to clean up the mess of their fight, and while he's in the darkness crying, some dude pulls up to the front door. It was so damn ominous. I was watching this and it was getting late at night, so that didn't help. Nothing happened to the kid when he met the dude, but the episode ended so abruptly. There weren't even any sponsor reads or commercials afterward or even a melodramatic OPM theme song. It ended, and after a bit it played the title card of the show with the weird choir music. But then the programming went back to normal it was almost abrupt.
I tried checking if Susmaryosep! ran again at that hour, but apparently not. This show is real that you can look it up and find stuff and you can even find out that it got cancelled, and is only airing until 2012. Maybe all the Shake, Rattle, and Roll is driving me nuts. I'd kill to watch this show again though.
I'm a guy from the Philippines who loves a good movie and the schlockiest of dramas. My aim is to show all the foreingers our cool stuff. Come for the reviews, stay for a good slice of Filipino cinema! Mga kababayan, ipagmalaki natin ang kakayanin ng ating mga kabansa.