Woman of Mud

A pre-med student, Mark, decides to throw it all away to try his hand at writing horror fiction. For inspiration, he moves to a remote hamlet ruled by self-styled mercenary police and befriends a few locals somehow living among the isolated tropics of rural Philippines. Unfortunately, as soon as he arrives he develops writer's block. A hokey faux magician entrusts Mark with cultivating a strange "living tree" (he pawns it off as "Japanese squash") that begets a strange, mute woman who inexplicably becomes Mark's lover. She doesn't eat or drink but when Mark accidentally cuts his hand, she is quick to suck his blood. While all of the nude sex scenes with her give Mark newfound inspiration to write, the downside is that she occasionally turns into a grotesque flesh-eating monster. This is a mild horror opus that suffers from a plodding pace until the monster shows up late in the game, and then it becomes all too predictable. Mark, indifferently played by Carlos Morales, is too dense a character to be likable (or even believable). The supporting cast, including Joanne Miller as a local girl who befriends Mark and John Arcilla as the leader of the police-soldiers, fare much better. As the woman of mud, Klaudia Koronel has little to do other than look beautiful. A big negative is the paper mâché monster costume.