Woman of Mud (2000)

Written and Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff

Film Information

Director: Rico Maria Llarde
Producer: Lily Y. Monteverde, Noemi Peji
Screenwriter: Andrew Paredes, Rico Maria Llarde
Date Released: March 28, 2000

Cast:
Carlos Morales as Mark
Klaudia Koronel as Sally
Marcus Madrigal as Jojo
John Arcilla as Lt. Ramil
Caloy Alde as Ben
Joanne Miller as Maita

Rating = 1.5/5 Graves

***May contain some spoilers***

Synopsis

Mark is an aspiring writer who is looking to write a story to submit to college at UCLA. To do so, Mark uses his uncle’s safe house in San Joaquin for peace and quiet to write his novel. Meanwhile, he is frequently visited by NPA rebels with assault rifles who demand food and water from him. One day, Mark is presented with a seed that if planted and urinated on, grows and gives that person the three happiest days of their life. What the plant grows into is a beautiful woman who Mark falls in love with. The woman is later referred to as Sally. But not everything is what it seems. In reality, Mark is dating a monster and she only feasts on one thing, blood.

The Gore Factor

The most notable gore scene was when the monster shoots acid from her breasts and melts one of her victim’s arms off. Much of the special effects take the form of an oozing effect or blood splatter. In addition, the prosthetic and special effect work of the monster, itself, was similar to that of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. However, for a film created in the year, 2000, the monster could have felt more realistic.

The Grave Review

Woman of Mud is a literal translation from the Filipino title, Ang Babaeng Putik. However, a native Tagalog speaking individual could interpret the words as “dirty woman” or “whore.” Given the fact that Sally came from the dirt and seduced Mark in the film, either translation is appropriate.

The combination of bad dialogue and cut scenes combined with raunchy music felt like a porn film. In fact, there was a soft-core porn scene in this film. It lasted approximately, three minutes and thirty seconds, but who’s counting? Mark is clearly not getting much writing done with his new playmate.

For the first 45-50 minutes, not much happens in the film. It only starts picking up after Sally comes out of her squash plant. The pace of the film was very slow nor was there anything scary or engaging happening. The drawn out plot made watching this film challenging.

In speaking with people from the Phillipines, it is not uncommon for the language to also incorporate English words. Woman of Mud (2000) does just that. Although all the dialogue is subtitled, you will often hear a sentence, half in Tagalog and half in English. To hear this is somewhat funny, but keep in mind that this mixture of dialects is common in the Philippines.

As Mark says, “that’s all folks!”

For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives Woman of Mud (2000) one and one-half graves out of five graves.

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You may also like our review of the film, Stay Alive.