On November 24, director Yam Laranas highlighted the original story for the upcoming Vivamax movie Laruan.
At the media conference, Laranas stressed that his 2022 film has a different storyline from the 1983 movie of the same title.
“This [Laruan] is an original film–this is an original story that is neither connected nor inspired by that original movie that you mentioned po.”
He then discussed how he created the story from the concept of cheating partners.
“I think when you say kasi Vivamax, you say– everyone expects to be sexy. Definitely, there is a sexy component here, pero ang objective ko talaga is to make, how to make a love affair, the Laruan portion– the Laruan story of this, you know, cheating wife and cheating friend, there is–kasi there is something suspenseful about that eh.”
He also pointed out his goal of getting into his characters’ motivations.
“Not just kung paano kung mahuli ka, hindi lang ‘yun eh. But ‘yung ano, what I wanted really was I went to the mind of the character. Ano ‘yung kaba nila, ‘yung takot nila, in fact ‘yung pagka kapal ng mukha nila sa pagche-cheat.
“So makaka-relate ‘yung mga tao, makaka-relate ‘yung mga audience na, ‘Oh my God, alam natin na may mahuhuli. Pero, ‘yung journey ng character from beginning to the end, ‘yun ang surprise and that’s why nandoon ‘yung suspense.”
He noted his aim of mixing the suspense genre with a typical infidelity and deception storyline.
“Ano ba ang pwede mong gawin with a story [that is] about deception and infidelity. To me, how do you make it scary, how do you make it creepy, and how do you make it suspenseful? So my dream right now is to mix genres.
“It’s really to cross over genres. But I personally miss doing horror, so that’s why there are horror elements here. Hindi siya supernatural, horrifying elements in Laruan, which I’m so excited that you guys would see.”
He then compared each character’s self-serving story arcs to four dynamites bound to explode.
“All of them have their own objectives. And all these objectives are either selfish or self-serving. So that’s why it would lead doon sa mga sinabi nila Ava and Franki na ‘yung sasabog talaga. So what to do, what will happen ba when you have four dynamites, let’s say, for example, and you slowly light them up together, you know, one of them will either explode, or all of them would explode at the same time.”
Laruan, directed by Yam Laranas, stars Franki Russel, Ava Mendez, Kiko Estrada, and Jay Manalo.
The suspense filled Vivamax film premieres via Vivamax Plus on December 12 and streams through Vivamax on December 16.
