In every festival, like Metro Manila Film Festival, horror flicks are among the staple entries. This year’s edition, Viva Films‘ DELETER, directed by Mikhail Red, is its official entry, with the award-winning actress Nadine Lustre as the lead star.
Due to its dim-lit setting, one can figure out that this is a horror film. It brought me back to Carmina Villaroel-starrer’s 2019 horror film, SUNOD. Though the building may not be old, it still has its air of creepiness. It sets the dark tone in its scenes.
Red’s film is about the possible effects on workers as content moderators. Its topic promises an intriguing and sinister germ for a story. It tackles prolonged and repeated exposure to such content[s] can be damaging. Moderators can develop vicarious trauma, with symptoms that include insomnia, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Lustre as Lyra is a content moderator. She rendered impressive performances for her post which her colleagues are envious of. She’s friends with a colleague named, Aileen (Louise delos Reyes). She also met a guy named, Jace, an IT personnel of a company on the lower floor, portrayed by McCoy de Leon.
What rocked the characters’ world was the death of Aileen, which triggered paranoia in the office where Lyra is working for. The attempts in scaring the moviegoers may have succeeded at some point, but rarely, at least for me. Rather than Aileen’s ghost going on a killing spree–it could have been scarier to discover the reason behind her haunting Lyra, not as a deleter, but as someone she promised to reveal something other than being molested and all.
There were attempts to create such eeriness and that Thai and Korean way of telling a horror story, but still, it fell short. Lyra’s dreams and memories are vivid that sometimes affect her psychologically. Her only ally to calm down, especially from being exposed to data she gathers every night is upbeat music.
Deleter is a modern-day Patayin sa Sindak si Barbara, but that film is something scarier and more disturbing than this 2022 MMFF entry. The concluding part may be metaphorical of who Lyra is–it was one that Lustre could get the nods of the jurors to give her the best actress trophy come tonight, December 27 at the Gabi ng Parangal. On the other hand, Hidalgo could vie for best supporting actor, too.
If the graphics or images in the film achieved a “shocking value” like found in Final Destination films, the audience may be would leave the cinemas disturbed and scared. DELETER has nothing new to offer except for the mind-boggling kind-of-deaths in the story.
