Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #130: Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings (2011).

After he openly mocks numerous gay men in the street, young Filipino Remington (Andre Salazar and later Martin Escudero) meets a drag queen named Pops (Roderick Paulate) who vindictively proclaims Remington will turn gay himself on his 21st birthday. Then jump forward to Remington at that age. He lives in the small town of Lucban, and has just met and fallen for new girl in town Hannah (Lauren Young). Unfortunately, Lucban has recently seen a spate of murders in the gay community and Remington's policewoman mother (Janice de Belen) and her colleagues have no leads. Unluckily for Remington, his behaviour and lifestyle soon quickly takes a turn for the effeminate and then he finds himself instead wanting to get into the pants of his best mate Jigs (Kerbie Zamora). Now, before he can start singing I Will Survive, Remington realises the curse Pops placed upon him as a kid is coming true, but his buried feelings for Hannah persist and so he has to set out with her and Jigs to see how he can lift it.

Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings is my introduction to Filipino cinema and it's a largely entertaining but uneven effort. Director and co-writer Jade Castro has great fun with affectionately mocking LGBT and Filipino stereotypes and culture through a horror-comedy premise, but I'm afraid in doing so he really pays inadequate attention to his film's pacing and that's its downfall. It also visually feels rather inconsistent, with some scenes very garishly designed and others very subtly which also somewhat contradicts its message of social unity and inclusion. However, Castro's passion for these themes and characters is evident throughout, and they certainly deserve a place in worldwide cinema.

Martin Escudero makes a very relatably conflicted and fabulous hero, with Zamora a reliable wingman and Paulate hams his justifiably vindictive sorcerous drag queen up to just the right level, although Young does only what she can with such a thin role. They more or less make this an engaging ride with the help of the credibly unique and celebratory narrative spin on horror comedy and the LGBT story, despite its storytelling shortcomings. 7/10.