Kisapmata

Mila marries, but her father Dadong refuses to let her out of his sight. The newlyweds have to move not into the husband's home but into the father's. Dadong is a retired policeman, there is a gun in the house, and nobody can tell him no. As the doors close, the domination inside the house becomes invisible from outside. Mike de Leon's film draws on a real case: The House on Zapote Street, the 1961 crime report Nick Joaquin wrote under the name Quijano de Manila. The film turns it into a domestic horror story, but what it is actually describing is one-man rule. Made under Marcos, it constructs the absolute power of the head of the household as the state's equivalent, and met censorship on release. Vic Silayan plays Dadong and carries the film's center. It won ten awards at the 1981 Metro Manila Film Festival including best picture, best director and best actor, and was later restored in 4K. Who it's for: Anyone interested in psychological horror, political allegory, and the classics of Filipino cinema. Who it's not for: Domestic violence and coercion are shown directly and the ending is heavy. No rescue is offered.