Welcome to the Fifteenth Circle of Hell
If Dante had been Filipino, his Inferno would’ve had a special level reserved for Shake, Rattle & Roll XV—a cinematic purgatory where jump scares go to die, snakes wear sequins, and airplanes are haunted not by ghosts, but by bad writing.
Yes, this is the fifteenth (you read that right—fifteenth) entry in the Shake, Rattle & Roll franchise, a horror anthology series that refuses to die, much like the monsters it keeps recycling. This one was touted as the “most expensive installment ever” in the series. After watching it, I’m guessing most of that budget went to dry ice, wigs, and paying someone to convince the actors this wouldn’t destroy their careers.
The result? Three stories stitched together like a corpse made of clichés, bad CGI, and John Lapus appearances. Each segment promises terror, delivers confusion, and ends in unintentional comedy gold.
Let’s dissect the corpse, shall we?
“AHAS”: BEAUTY AND THE REPTILE
We start with “Ahas,” a retelling of the urban legend about a human-snake hybrid living under a mall—because nothing says terror like department store discounts and body horror.
Our hero Troy (JC de Vera) is mourning his wife, who gets eaten by a giant snake in a dressing room. Instead of calling mall security or, say, the police, Troy spends his days wandering the mall looking like he just lost a fight with insomnia. Meanwhile, a half-human, half-snake named Sarah (Erich Gonzales) develops a crush on him. Yes, ladies and gentlemen—this is a love story between a grieving man and a reptile who lives under Robinsons Galleria.
It’s Beauty and the Beast meets Snake on the Loose meets What the Hell Am I Watching?
Sarah is torn between her human side and her scaly, murder-hungry tendencies. Her evil snake self—think Gollum if he had a mall membership—keeps telling her she’ll never be loved. And honestly, with the way she hisses and slithers through air vents like a rejected Pokémon, I kind of see their point.
We later learn that she’s the cursed daughter of a mall owner (Ariel Rivera) who wanted good luck for his business. Because of course he did. Who needs marketing when you can have a snake daughter bring you prosperity?
The fashion designer Iggy (John Lapus, apparently contractually required to appear in every Filipino anthology) decides to celebrate the mall’s anniversary by making a statue of the snake girl. This ends about as well as you’d expect—blood, betrayal, and a snake the size of a jeepney terrorizing everyone in the food court.
Troy eventually kills Sarah by stabbing her, then gets eaten, then cuts his way out of her stomach. Nothing says closure like crawling out of your girlfriend’s intestinal tract. Sandra (Sarah’s human twin) weeps, probably wondering how her acting career ended up here.
Verdict: “Ahas” isn’t scary. It’s Slithering Melodrama: The Telenovela.
“ULAM”: A COOKING SHOW FROM HELL
Next up, “Ulam”—a horror short that starts like a Maalala Mo Kaya episode and ends like an episode of MasterChef: Satan’s Edition.
Dennis Trillo and Carla Abellana play a couple who move into a creepy mansion after the death of their grandmother. They meet Aling Lina (Chanda Romero), a caretaker who cooks suspiciously delicious meals. Things go wrong when Carla finds a lizard tail in her food—which, honestly, is still more appetizing than the rest of this movie.
The couple continues eating the meals because, apparently, “something tastes off” is not enough of a reason to skip lunch in Filipino horror logic. Soon, they begin transforming into their Chinese zodiac animals. No, I’m not making this up. Dennis Trillo gets moody and animalistic, Carla Abellana goes feral, and I go insane trying to figure out if this is supposed to be scary or a darkly comedic PSA about food allergies.
The film tries to mix black magic, generational curses, and marital strife, but it mostly feels like an overcooked adobo with too many ingredients and not enough salt. There’s a message somewhere about greed, gluttony, or maybe not eating leftovers from creepy caretakers, but by the time the credits roll, I just wanted dessert—and an exorcism.
Verdict: “Ulam” made me hungry, but only for better cinema.
“FLIGHT 666”: FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS, THIS SCRIPT IS ABOUT TO CRASH
Finally, we reach “Flight 666,” the segment that proudly declares itself the first Filipino film shot inside a real airplane. It’s also the first one that made me wish for a real emergency exit.
The plot: a commercial flight from Manila to Zamboanga becomes a flying buffet for a demonic baby (tiyanak), whose mother gives birth mid-air. Because apparently, even in Filipino horror, PAL stands for Possessed Airlines Limited.
The plane’s passengers include vloggers, a hijacker, a pregnant woman, a celebrity, and of course, John Lapus again—this time as comic relief that doesn’t land. The tiyanak, born from a woman who fell for a creature (romance goals, am I right?), begins attacking everyone in what feels like a mash-up of Snakes on a Plane, The Exorcist, and a Cebu Pacific safety video gone rogue.
As the baby kills passengers with its umbilical cord, pilots get strangled, engines fail, and the hijacking subplot gets dropped faster than the plane’s altitude. The climax involves survivors crash-landing, escaping the wreckage, and walking away as the plane explodes—because if there’s one thing this franchise loves, it’s explosions and unfinished business.
Oh, and the ending hints that the tiyanak’s father is still out there, probably planning Flight 667: Return of the Baby.
Verdict: “Flight 666” is a disaster film, but not in the way the filmmakers intended.
ACTING: WHEN OVERDRAMATIC BECOMES THE DEFAULT
Across all three stories, the performances range from decent to “Oh God, please make it stop.” Erich Gonzales deserves praise for committing fully to her snake-woman role, even when the CGI makes her look like a rejected Mortal Kombat character. Dennis Trillo and Carla Abellana try their best to add emotion to Ulam, but you can see the moment they realize this script won’t make sense even with divine intervention.
Lovi Poe and Matteo Guidicelli do fine in Flight 666, though both spend most of their screen time looking shocked, sweaty, or confused—essentially how I looked watching the entire film.
And John Lapus? The man is omnipresent. He’s in every segment, like the Filipino horror version of Where’s Waldo?, except louder and occasionally wearing eyeliner.
SPECIAL EFFECTS: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN TV5 AND A FEVER DREAM
The CGI ranges from “passable” to “was this rendered on a Nokia 3310?” The snake transformation in “Ahas” looks like a PS2 cutscene, the animal morphing in “Ulam” resembles a bad Snapchat filter, and the tiyanak in “Flight 666” looks like Chucky’s cousin after a Jollibee binge.
For the “most expensive installment,” it sure looks like they spent the effects budget on catering and dry ice.
THE REAL HORROR: HOW LONG THIS SERIES HAS BEEN ALIVE
By the time the credits roll, you realize the true monster here isn’t a snake, a witch, or a flying demon baby—it’s the fact that this franchise has survived fifteen entries. Shake, Rattle & Roll XV feels less like a movie and more like a contractual obligation haunting Filipino cinema every Christmas.
It’s bloated, inconsistent, and unintentionally hilarious—but maybe that’s its charm. There’s something almost endearing about how earnestly bad it is. It’s like your tita telling ghost stories after a few glasses of wine—nonsensical, loud, but kind of fun if you stop taking it seriously.
FINAL VERDICT
⭐️⭐️ (and one of those stars is pity).
Shake, Rattle & Roll XV is a cinematic buffet of bad decisions—part telenovela, part fever dream, part airplane safety hazard. It’s not scary, but it is unforgettable in the way food poisoning is unforgettable.
If you like your horror campy, chaotic, and proudly Filipino in its refusal to make sense, this one’s for you. Just remember: the real curse of this franchise isn’t the monsters—it’s knowing there are fourteen more of these lurking somewhere, waiting for a sequel.
