Photographed by Pierfrancesco Artini for the August 2023 Issue of Vogue Philippines
Why do we cling to the monsters of our past, and let the creatures of old haunt us?
Humans have always been fascinated by the unknown. All cultures have rites and traditions, often spanning centuries, dedicated to dealing with the supernatural. Even the Bible talks about communing with the dead. The Philippines is no different. Before the Spanish arrived, there were special people whose job was to serve as a link between the mortal and spirit worlds, and even after our conquerors left, these folk beliefs continued on, now merged with Catholicism to form its own practice. The most popular example of this are the wares sold outside Quiapo church, which are a mix of indigenous Philippine healing beliefs and Catholicism, with some Western esoterica thrown in. It can also be seen in the anting-anting culture, where the Holy Trinity rules side by side with the Infinito Dios, the god that reigned in these isles before the advent of Christianity. The story goes that when Jesus came to the Philippines and began baptizing everything, the Infinito Diyos hid from him, later allowing himself to be baptized instead of it being forced on him.
This isn’t unique to the Philippines. It happened in other colonized countries as well such as England, Poland, and Spain, places where folk religion was forced to fuse with Christianity to survive.
Christianity is a religion that teaches love for others, especially outcasts. And yet its spread is marred by centuries of warfare, enslavement, force, scapegoating, and demonization. It’s become almost common knowledge that some of today’s folk monsters may have been manufactured, if not by the prevailing religion, then perhaps by an invading force. A sanctioned smear campaign, if you will. The babaylan of yore were vilified by the Spanish conquerors, turning folks who were once revered for their link between worlds as witches in service of the devil. There’s also the widespread fear (but, as far as I know, unverified tale) of the aswang being the product of an American psy-op during the Filipino American War. American soldiers would apparently murder and disembowel Filipinos then spread word that there were aswang nearby.
As the Rev. Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor, Butman Professor of Religion from Piedmont College, Demorest Campus, said, “Beware those who claim to know the will of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform.”
In the media, folk monsters are a staple part of horror film and literature. They are so prevalent that they comprise their own subgenre, folk horror, which generally deals with pagan beliefs superseding modern (aka Christian-coded) society. Film history will tell you that the subgenre began in Central and Western Europe. The British are particularly prolific, with classics such as The Wicker Man (1973) starring Edward Woodward. Other popular, not necessarily British folk horror films include The Witch (2015) and Midsommar (2019), the latter also a great breakup film.
While folk horror is a subgenre globally, it is the prevailing theme in Filipino horror. Despite living in 2024, our collective fears still seem to be rooted in the distant past, its monsters emerging from the colonized dark to continue terrorizing our collective consciousness.
A majority of our horror and fantasy films and fiction still draw from our monsters of yore, finding ways to either cement their monstrosity or subvert it, usually by painting such creatures as misunderstood, whether maliciously or by accident.
Why do we cling to the monsters of our past? Surely, with the advent of high technology, which includes worldwide connectivity at a scale unprecedented in human history, not to mention the real-life horrors that plague our country, we would have moved on to different monsters by now. Yet it is still creatures of old that haunt our dreams. I have three theories as to why this is so.
The first is because we are in the middle of nation-building. One of the characteristics of a community that’s trying to find its collective identity is to look to the past. This can be seen in the rise of Irish folklore and folk music in the 90s coinciding with the country’s economic rise as the Celtic Tiger, and on an older and darker note, what began as the twisting and co-opting of German folklore eventually gave rise to the Nazi party. The looking to mythology and folklore to find a national identity can also be seen in diasporic communities, where, unable to identify with the current goings-on in their Motherland, children of migrants will instead seek solace and build identity on the past. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this; it’s a good place to start building community.
Second, there’s a belief in film theory that horror films often signal the prevailing concerns of the society that produced them. The horror genre’s effectiveness hinges on its identifying the dark side of human emotions, which include fear, terror, disgust, and even unnatural desire, making it an effective way to dissect systems of oppression. The most common examples given pertain to American cinema. The 50s obsession with radioactive monsters reflected the prevailing fear of the atomic bomb. The rise of the slasher film in the 80s was a merging of the masculine and the monstrous, as well as a prudish reaction to the free love of the 60s and 70s. Zombie films are often compared to the vast trend chasing and outsourcing of thought brought about by rampant consumerism. That our media feature the creatures our grandparents’ grandparents were afraid of may point to our having the same problems they did and our inability to band together and slay our monsters, which, oftentimes, are fellow humans.
And then there is the third option, which is that these creatures are real after all, and the horror genre is our way of making sense of this other world. Some stories end in their eradication, while others—and these are the ones I gravitate to—try to find a way to live with them.
Folk beliefs are alive and well in 2024, and they wouldn’t have survived for so long if there wasn’t something behind them.
*A Palanca Award winner, Yvette Tan is one of the country’s most celebrated horror fiction writers.
Photograph by Pierfrancesco Artini for the August 2023 Issue of Vogue Philippines. Styling by Jana Zabarska. Makeup: Jimmy Stam using Shiseido. Hair: Bianca Van Zwieten for Varis Professionals using Schwarzkopf. Model: Qian Li from Uno Models. Art Director & Production Designer: Roberta Terra. Art Director Assistant: Elda Frison. Stylist’s Assistant: Raúl González. Flowers: Loverde Studio.
