Runtime: 97m
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
I grew up with Philippine folklore stories about aswangs/ongo, duwendes (dwarves), mambabarang, tambalan (healers), and tikbalangs, to name a few.
Seeing that Nocebo touched on being a tambalan (healer), the part played by Chai Fonacier, made me curious about how the story unfolds. Thankfully, the movie is on Netflix, which makes it accessible and convenient to watch. It might not be spooky season for a few months, but if you’ve been missing the thrill of watching horror movies, Nocebo is worth putting on your list!
WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
In a nutshell, you have to watch out for the blink-and-you-miss-it signs to understand the story better.
The movie boasts a capable cast with Eva Green (Christine), Mark Strong (Felix, Christine’s husband), Chai Fonacier (Diana, the nanny), and Billie Gadson (Roberta/Bobs, Felix and Christine’s daughter).
There is something about Eva Green’s character Christine, a fashion designer— and her lucky red shoes and the chant she says every time she wears them. From there, the movie touches on her visions and the on-screen dynamics between Eva and Chai. The up-close shots of Christine suffering from what she perceives as her illness, having brain fog, and Diana doing her best with the healing rituals (or so I thought, but it wasn’t) for Christine.
Aside from the main plot, flashbacks of Diana and her life in the Philippines show the subplot.
The movie brilliantly visualizes how the power of an ongo is passed on. The power or the ability is seen here as a chick that has to be transferred from the dying ongo to the new one. As the tales I’ve heard did not explicitly tell how the ability moves from one person to another, this was, in my opinion, conveyed well. The old ongo will not die if no one accepts the “gift.”
It all started for Diana when one night, her family sheltered an old lady who was an ongo. To die peacefully, she has to pass on her powers to someone. A young Diana was in the room as the ongo was on her deathbed—the power (presented as a chick coming out of her mouth). The ongo passed on the ability to Diana. The chick entered the young Diana’s mouth, making her an ongo. So the tambalan angle from this scene turned to ongo and mambabarang.
My picture of an ongo is different from how it is in the movie. The one Diana portrays is more of a mambabarang and tambalan, another type of ability. To me, an ongo is someone that I imagine to be a manananggal or Teniente Gimo. It must have been all those stories growing up, and the tales the elders tell the little ones to get them inside the house before it gets dark. A mambabarang does witchcraft with potions, spells, and other herbs and ingredients. Same with a tambalan, but it is more of a thin line between the two. The tambalan heals, while a mambabarang does more harm than good. It’s who you go to if you want revenge on someone.
Diana arrives on Christine’s doorstep in the guise of healing her from her visions, brain fog, and other manifestations of her illness. Felix is bewildered by the need for Diana. Then a series of unfortunate events follow, aside from the episodic attacks of Christine and Diana healing her, from Felix unintentionally killing Roberta’s pet bird to Felix falling down the stairs and going to the hospital for it. Though not explicitly implied, all these accidents are one of those blink-and-you-miss-it moments caused by Diana.
Diana shows Christine flashes of what I initially thought was karma happening, and Christine says she doesn’t want to see it. Then I understood it wasn’t karma that Diana wanted to happen but revenge – for her daughter’s death. We then see Christine on a sewing machine with her red shoes on as Diana talks to her. Finally, as Christine steps on the pedal, we see her burning until all that is left is her charred body, but her feet and red shoes are intact. As Diana sees this, her plan of avenging her daughter’s death comes to fruition.
Having completed her mission, Diana then passes on the power to Bobs. In the finale, Bobs gathers plants from the forest, and Diana watches her a short distance away. She is fulfilling her promise to stay with her forever. This metaphor represents her child being taken from her, so she took the child of the one she sees as the one who took hers.
Scenes to watch out for are when Diana cooks humba for the family, Christine speaks a line in Bisaya, and Diana says she lives in Kilum-kilum (don’t look for it on a map). Another one is Diana saying in Bisaya “Gaba, Gaba, dako og mata. Kita ko, kita ka, makit-an ka niya.” The Kilum-kilum and budots part were something, though.
In the time since its release, Nocebo has gained widespread attention and is continuing to draw interest in Filipino folklore. If you’re looking for a spook, check out Nocebo and let us know your thoughts.
