Review of CLASS OF 2018: Teenage Thrills

November 8, 2018

In the graduating class of 2018 of Del Pilar National High School, there was one section where the school dumped all those students who were not likely to succeed in the future. There were those with anti-social behavior, bullies, troublemakers, geeks and the like. Even among themselves, they were at odds with each other, especially a secret blog exposing the dirty truth about each classmate was hacked and leaked 

One day, their science teacher brought them to Mt. Bantayog to study its uniquely changing endemic plant life. However, when one of the students sustained a wound and washed off in a nearby river, he later transformed into a violent killing monster. Later when the students were all gathered and trapped in a warehouse, other students also began transforming into undead killers, placing the class in mortal danger where only the lucky could survive.

This was a typical zombie flick where the big cast of characters at the beginning of the film gets picked off and killed one by one, in the most bizarrely violent means, until only a few stronger or luckier ones remain at the end. Only, for this one, some of the characters were not only killed off by the zombies or soldiers, but also by their own classmates. This was a strange twist to have the students be so seriously at odds or paranoid at each other to create a sort-of "Hunger Games" scenario.

To its credit, this had an interesting and ambitious science fiction theme -- a scientific experiment first launched in the 1980s that got rebooted six years ago. However, it also shared the same problem with previous local attempts at sci-fi  -- the production design. The whole set-up of the supposedly well-funded experiment being conducted was rather too crude-looking to be believable as scientific. The transmission mode of the zombie virus was also too random to be truly scientifically-controlled.

There were more than 20 members of Section Z, so each of the young actors had to try their best to make their roles stand-out. 

Of course the more well-known actors had more pronounced roles. Sharlene San Pedro was Ada, the angry ostracized daddy's girl. Nash Aguas was RJ, the tame apologetic jock. The ever-scene-stealing Kiray Celis was Venus, the mean girl queen-bee, as always. Kristel Fulgar was the noisy, perennial late-comer Princess. Ethan Salvador was a alpha-male brute. Michelle Vito was the clueless beauty who said "irregardless" regardless of the situation. 

Eisen Lim and Kaiser Boado playfully rapped as rhyming comic duo B1 and B2. Jude Sevilla was the slimy pervert Wacky, while John Vic de Guzman played his all-brawn, no-brain pal Jamir. Shaira Dizon's Misha was a selfie-addict up to her gory end. Aga Arceo was shy "torpe" guy Ericson. Lara Fortuna displayed remarkable action-princess form as the silent loner Jonalyn.

For the faculty, Luis Alandy played their earnest teacher Sir Patrick, while Lotlot də Leon (whom i didn't immediately recognize) played his strict superior Ms. Carolyn. Alex Medina played bus driver Junix. For the ruthless experimenters, Dido Dela Paz played the old General and Sherry Lara played the deceptively soft-spoken Hera. Yayo Aguila played Ada's mother Selina, negligent in more ways than one. 

Writer-director Charliebebs Gohetia tried to create his own unique type of zombie, unlike the typical film zombies we've seen before. These new zombies would be exhibiting exaggerated displays of the individual quirks and hobbies of the students.  So in this case, there would be a zombie drummer (Noubikko Ray), zombie rockers (Mark Oblea and Nikki Gonzales), zombie Anime cosplay ears (Jerom Canlas and Yvette Sanchez), a zombie video gamer (Justin de Guzman), etc.

The premise was innovative and ambitious, but the execution could not keep up and was thus inconsistent. There were so many characters to kill off so that the whole story became over-extended, repetitive and even corny for certain kills. Anyhow, funny more than terrifying, it was still entertaining, especially for its target teenage / millennial demographic. 6/10.