Vivamax: Review of AHASSS: Insidious Infidelity

 October 13, 2023

Crooked cop Lt. Agusto (Jao Mapa) interceded for the illegal activities of American businessman Sam Stonehill (Ian Curtis) and his cohorts. While Sam may be generous with his money, he was also coarse, hot-headed, violent and sexually-abusive to his Filipina wife Adelyn (Angela Morena) and their housekeeper Jenny (Janelle Tee). One day, Agusto brought teenager Jake (Gold Aceron) to be Sam's houseboy. 

With that synopsis, you can probably already guess which character was going to fall in love with whom, despite the very obvious danger involved. Countless movies, local and foreign, usually of the B kind, have been made about this topic of reckless infidelity against all odds. In all these other films, the outcome is invariably going to be bad, even violent most of the time. There is no surprise anymore, so boring, yet here comes yet another one. 

Angela Morena's last film was about a young woman who fought back against the man who raped her in "BJJ: Woman on Top" (2023). Here she is again with basically the same role, but this time as the abused wife of an American scoundrel who longed to be able to fight back and get free from his dirty clutches. However, it was with her character Adelyn that writer-director Ato Bautista injected a plot twist that he thought would set this apart from other films like it.

I do not know how Gold Aceron could keep a straight face while mouthing those unnaturally naive and foolishly idealistic things Jake kept on saying to Adelyn supposedly to keep her spirits up. These were definitely trite, cringe-worthy lines, but then again Jake was an eighteen year old in lust, so he just said whatever his juvenile mild thought this lonely older woman wants to hear in order to get her into bed -- or so he thought. 

Ian Curtis went all-out to play Sam Stonehill as this crazy and scary American gangster boss. Just watching the lascivious way he'd have his way on Morena or Tee can make you recoil in disgust. In those scenes Sam had with his similarly-foul-mouthed drinking buddies Bobby (Erick Horn) and Billy Boy (Staycey Michelle), the degree of lecherousness was multiplied by three, as well as the sense of imminent danger. 

Janelle Tee is back again after a long hiatus from Vivamax feature film projects. She had four lead roles in a row in 2022 with "Putahe," "Secrets," "Pusoy" and "The Escort Wife," then a long absence, until now. Even if she performed quite well in her smallish role of the housekeeper Jenny, Tee, unfortunately, was very miscast. Tall, elegant,with undeniable beauty queen carriage, Tee certainly did not look like a maid at all. 

The best aspect of this film was its location, which was a modern mansion in remote mountainous area. However, even if the living room, dining room, the open bedroom and the swimming pool area looked so high-class, I wondered why the bathroom, so small, dim and dingy,  did not look like part of the house at all. Those gratuitous sex scenes shot in that bathroom looked terribly off, they should have edited them out of the film altogether. 

For those who watch this film waiting for a real snake to appear during a sex scene, they will be disappointed. The titular "snake" was merely symbolic. The final two additional S's were mere gimmick, nothing more. 2/10.