Kris back with another shocker

MANILA, Philippines - In last year’s Metro Manila Filmfest, Kris Aquino’s Dalaw turned out to be the biggest winner even if it didn’t end up the top-grosser. It was a horror-suspense that stood out from the rest of the entries.

 Produced by Kris herself on a moderate budget (compared to the high budget of most of the competing entries), with a few investments and encouragement from dear friends, the movie emerged as a moneymaker, in the process earning hundreds of millions of pesos. It was literally a gigantic tubong-lugaw project, with Kris’ friend Diether Ocampo as her leading man.

Believing that lightning does strike twice, Kris is back with another horror-shocker along the same vein, calculated to send even more people to the edge of their seats screaming. The movie, Segunda Mano, is produced on a budget bigger than Dalaw, with Dingdong Dantes as Kris’ leading man.

Directed by Joyce Bernal, Segunda Mano is an eerie love story with a cutthroat twist. Kris plays Mabel Domingo, a girl who goes through life with a guilty conscience over the death of her stepsister by drowning. Dingdong plays Ivan Galvez, a rich and successful architect. Their forthcoming marriage is marred by a mysterious ghost who seems to kill everyone around them. Moviegoers are in for a big shock at the identity of the ghost-killer.

That Dingdong would be enlisted by Kris as her leading man is not a surprise at all. When the biopic of Kris’ late dad, Sen. Ninoy Aquino, was being planned, the Aquino family agreed with Kris that the best choice to play Ninoy was Dingdong; and he still is. Dingdong is also serving the Aquino Administration in his capacity as head of his own foundation dedicated to helping the youth. He also helped campaign for Kris’ brother Noynoy Aquino during the 2010 presidential campaign.

Segunda Mano is the only Metro Filmfest horror-suspense entry that has a love angle to it, only to shock the audience with a tragic twist.

Will history repeat itself and make Segunda Mano as much of a “surprise winner” as Dalaw was?

It’s not far-fetched.