October 15, 2021
Homely gay pest exterminator Noel (Lassy Marquez) has a willing accomplice in his best friend architect Krista (Ariella Arida) in his perverse habit. He uses her attractive photographs for him to meet, seduce, drug and molest unsuspecting men who use the dating application. Their present target is handsome gym rat Yael (Kit Thompson). The two kinky friends never suspected what their latest escapade had in store for them.
Writer-director Darryl Yap is back again with his 12th film project, his 9th for this year alone. Every time a Darryl Yap film comes out, there is bound to be some controversy preceding it as he chooses to tackle one triggering topic after the other -- from pornography to mental illness to skin color and the like. This new project goes after an unscrupulous modern dating activity borne out of the anonymity of social media -- catfishing.
Catfishing is a deceptive practice where someone pretends to be someone else in order to meet new people on an online social networking site. In this movie, gay predator Noel, fully aware of his ugly puffy facial features, resorts to using the glossy model-like photos of his BFF Krista to attract his male victims online. Yap created a new dating app here called Course, which offered a choice between Inter (physical) or Intra (virtual) sexual experiences.
Kit Thompson was able to expand his range into more off-kilter roles like Yael, who suffered from an abusive childhood. Lassy Marquez was very scary realistic as Noel, as he gleefully ravished the unconscious Thompson. I felt bad that Ariella Arida's character Krista was really very badly treated, both in the story and by the camera, despite that this was Arida's feature film debut. Her shower scene was so unappealingly shot with dim light and terrible angles, in contrast with how Thompson's shower scene was shot with a lascivious gaze.
Frequent Yap collaborator Bob Jbeili played the role of Emman, a mousy mobile phone repair man working outside Yael's gym. Marion Aunor channeled Billie Eilish in her featured song number as Nirvana. The requisite angst-ridden Yap monologue was delivered this time by Tart Carlos, in the character of Yael's sadistic Tiya Salve. Yap also used a multi-colored silent Greek chorus of sorts (Leslie Lacap, Faith Medina and Bea David), dancing and haunting in drug-addled nightmares.
This purposefully offensive film definitely went beyond the limits of good taste to depict perverse depravity onscreen. The sexual abuse progressively went downhill from hungry groping to outright rape. Unlike what the tagline says, there seemed to be no doubts cast as to whether these heinous acts committed under the influence of drugs actually happened or not. The extreme levels of salaciousness and violence here was also beyond anything Yap tackled before. This is certainly not for everybody. 2/10.
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