Archeologist Philip (Mark Gil) and his team excavate a weird ancient
temple that might be the very first sign of civilisation on the whole
earth. Philip's girlfriend Isabel (Dang Cecilio) finds a secret room and
is scared shitless by two snakes she sees inside. When she calls the
others for help, the snakes are gone of course, and she is accused of
hysteria - but whoever has ever seen a horror film knows she's right of
course, the snakes were actually growing out of the shoulders of immortal
demi-god Zuma (Max Laurel), who has been entombed here for centuries, but
now freed ... wel, you know the routine, basically he kills virgins and
rips their hearts out to feast on them. He also shags Galela (Raquel
Montesa), who becomes his partner in crime, luring virgins to his lair,
and she soon carries his baby. Eventually, Philip devices a plan where
Isabel (yes, she's still a virgin) becomes the bait for a trap for Zuma,
and in the process both Zuma and Galela are captured. The army tries to
shoot Zuma but to no effect (hey, he's immortal), so they bury him under
tons upon tons of rubble hoping to have gotten rid of him once and for all
(fat chance). Then, doctors perform an abortion on Galela, but it only
kills Galela while the embryo finds a new host. Eventually, Philip gets
hold of the embryo, locks it inside a safe, has the safe entombed in
concrete and hides it in a quarry. Then though, Zuma emerges from his
stony grave and prepares to kill Philip - who tells him where his daughter
is in exchange for his life. Zuma finds the entombed safe, opens it, and
finds a baby with snakes growing out of her shoulders. One of the snakes
bites and presumably kills him. The end? Of course not: 19 years
later, Zuma comes to life again. Philip has in the meantime raised Zuma's
daughter Galema (Snooky Serna) to be a beautiful woman who hides her
snakes under her hair. When they hear Zuma is back, Galema knows her duty:
To kill him again. But Zuma sweettalks her and actually uses her as a
diversion to kidnap one of his fiercest enemies, the former head of police
and current mayor (Charlie Davao). Galema, together with a young soldier,
Morgan (Rey PJ Abellana) go after them and track them down to Zuma's
temple ... where they are soon incarcerated in one of the temple's secret
rooms. Gelema makes a deal with Zuma to at least get Morgan to safety
(Zuma brutally kills the mayor, mind you), then the snake god (!) makes
the temple cave in and bury them both under the rubble (till the sequel at
least). By no standards can Zuma be called an actual good
film - it's just so much fun, pretty much a comicbook come to life (and
yes, it really is based on a comicbook) with all its over-the-top ideas,
crazy plottwists, clichées and pulp mainstays, simplistic approach,
old-fashioned distinction between good and evil, and so on and so forth.
Add to this a charismatic and fun green-skinned villain, crude effects, a
trashy approach, exotic atmosphere, and a directorial
effort that might not exactly be called inventive but certainly has got
the pace of the piece down, and you're left with ... well, pure
entertainment - not exactly high-brow, but good for many a laugh, both
with and at the movie.
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