Actress Julia Barretto immediately said yes to Brillante Mendoza when the multi-awarded director pitched a project to her. She agreed to be part of the film even without knowing the story or seeing the script.
In this project, Barretto gets paired with Xian Lim – who plays her husband in the film – for the first time. She is also reunited with Marco Gumabao, who, in the movie, plays her erstwhile boyfriend.
“I didn’t have any idea what the story was. I had zero clue but I said yes immediately,” Barretto shared during the film’s media conference admitting that it’s her first time to do a horror flick. And in doing so, the young actress felt that she went out of her comfort zone.
“At the end of the day, it was trusting your director and trusting yourself. That’s the biggest factor why we did what we were supposed to do. It was all about growing, learning, trusting, and believing,” she carried on.
Titled Bahay Na Pula, the story revolves around newlyweds Jane (Barretto) and Marco (Xian), who travel to Mindoro to sell the ancestral house that Jane inherits from her grandmother. The caretaker gives them a tour around the property, but Jane suddenly feels strange upon reaching the basement. That night, the couple make love to one another when suddenly, Jane notices that someone seems to be peeping at them.
The next day, Jane and Marco were informed that the buyer of the property backs out because the Municipal Council passes a resolution starting the process of declaring the ancestral house as a National Historic Site.
Jane tries to talk to the Municipal Mayor to convince him to veto the council resolution. But to her surprise, her ex-boyfriend Anton (Gumabao), now the Mayor’s secretary, faces her. While they lobby together to reverse the council’s resolution, old flames start to rekindle. At the same time, evil is about to be born as Jane experiences horrifying events inside the ancestral house that lead to her tummy growing bigger and faster by the day, as if she was pregnant.
Meanwhile, Xian Lim shared that working with Mendoza was so inspiring for Lim.
“He’s the type of director whom you would listen to when he started talking. He didn’t beat around the bush. His filmmaking style is really unique and something different. In his filmmaking process, we learned so much. Our director made us realize it’s okay to have changes along the way,” he shared.
Bahay Na Pula, which streams on Vivamax on February 25, marks Brillante’s return to the horror genre. His last one was Sapi, shown almost a decade ago in 2013, starred Dennis Trillo, Baron Geisler, and Meryll Soriano.