Sukob


Sukob is a 2006 Filipino horror film directed by Chito S. Roño and starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barretto. Sukob was considered as the highest-grossing Filipino film of all-time earning ₱203 million, until 2009 when it was surpassed by the romance film You Changed My Life. The film's premise is based on a Filipino superstition sukob in which one should not get married within the same year an immediate relative dies or marries.

Plot

Sandy returns to the Philippines with Dale from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for their wedding. Upon returning to her home, Sandy learns from a caretaker of her neighbor's house that Helen, Sandy's childhood friend, had died along with her family years ago. Her mother Tessie revealed that Helen announced her engagement after the recent death of her father Dr. Quisumbing despite being advised to postpone the wedding due to the old superstition that a marriage within the same year an immediate family member dies will be cursed. A few weeks after the wedding, Helen's husband perish in a plane crash while his wife dies in a bus accident at the crash site and Helen's mother suddenly disappears inside their home afterwards.
Meanwhile, in Bibiclat, Aliaga, Diana and Brian celebrate their marriage when they are interrupted by the sound of a funeral toll from the belfry of the church. When they resume the wedding reception, Diana sees a glimpse of a mysterious flower girl watching her. The next day, Sandy and Dale proceed with their wedding. During the ceremony, Sandy also sees the ghostly flower girl in front of her. At the same time, Brian falls off the roof while renovating their house and dies after he was taken to the local hospital. While Diana mourns Brian's death, she is attacked by the flower girl at the morgue as Brian's mother Belen, Erning, Grace and her mother Lagring arrive to find that Brian's body has disappeared; in its place they find Diana's wedding veil. After their reception, Sandy and Dale witness the van of Sandy's friends Betsy and Edith fall down a ravine. Rescuers are unable to find their bodies however, instead finding Sandy's wedding veil inside the van. Joya, the psychic daughter of Dale's cousin Paola, reveals the same connection that happened at Helen's wedding. Meanwhile, Lagring and Grace chase after a dazed Diana who was lured into the forest by her husband's ghost. When Grace finally catches up to her, they see the flower girl once again as Lagring is rammed by a speeding bus, leaving Diana's bridal cord at the scene.
Sandy and Dale decide to seek help from Joya and they learn from Gilda, Dale's mother, that Paola is headed to Nueva Ecija. The couple arrive at the bus station before Paola could leave with her daughter. After convincing the latter's help, they arrive at Helen's former home along with Tessie to contact her spirit. While the group distract the caretaker, Joya encounters a stray malevolent spirit who possesses her and warns Sandy that her wedding was cursed. Shocked by the revelation as neither one of her family members nor Dale's had died recently, Paola reveals that siblings who propose their vows on the same year will be cursed by sukob. Joya then reveals the identity of the spirit who possessed her, leading to Tessie discovering that her husband Fred had a recent affair, fathering a child out of wedlock whom he abandoned. They confront him, pushing him to reveal that he had left his lover, Claudia, a year ago before the child who turns out to be Sandy's half-sibling reached adulthood. When both Sandy and Diana receive their respective wedding photos, the people who had died are all headless in the photos and the others who remained are bound to die including themselves. Diana, who turns out to be Claudia's daughter until her mother's death after the affair, was accompanied by Erning and Grace to seek help from an old hermit to reveal the nature of the curse. He then warns Diana, who was now pregnant after the wedding, that the spirit will claim her child when her face was partially faded in her photo.
Having had enough of her husband's behavior and infidelity, Tessie stormed out of the house to leave town and when her family tried to stop her, a car driven by a drunk driver knocks down a construction site, killing Tessie and was consumed by the curse after Fred and Dale attempt to recover her body and found Sandy's cord from the debris. The next day after driving Paola and Joya back to their house, Sandy and Dale arrive at Bibiclat to find the former's half-sister. But as they stop by at the local resort, Sandy left the key to their room and leaves Dale trapped inside where he was claimed by the spirit with the candle before Sandy could save him. The spirit then pursues Diana and Grace who are attempting to move out of the barrio and leave town but the curse consumes Grace who was taken away by her mother's apparition at the roadside. Sandy and Diana, who are now the last remaining victims, met each other after the curse follows them to the police station where they drop by and lured by the spirit before they later recognize themselves as sisters during their conversation en route. Acquiring the paraphernalia from Diana's wedding that the curse blighted on earlier at her house, she and Sandy arrive at the hermit's hut to burn them at a ritual but the spirit discovered this and vanish the hermit after the sisters escape with the arrhae. Retreated back to town during the Taong Putik Festival, Sandy and Diana go to the church where the latter was wed in pursuit by the curse. Entrapped at the top of the belfry, Sandy attempts to crush the arrhae but the spirit arrives and has hers from her wedding. As the curse attempts to take Diana's child, Sandy stops the spirit and falls from the belfry to her death, sacrificing herself to spare her half-sister and end the curse.
Diana reunites with their father who had just arrived at the town the next morning to reconcile her after mourning Sandy's death, guilty for his actions that have constrained his family and Claudia. Arriving back home with his daughter to accompany him, the curse now lingers onto Fred as he is haunted by Tessie and Sandy's ghosts who arrive at his house to claim him.

Cast

Sukob was released in the United States in eight theaters. It earned $300,454.

Reception

The film was a critical and commercial success. It earned ₱186.41 Million domestically and ₱203 million worldwide, and was considered by some as one of the scariest Filipino horror films ever made.
It was lampooned in the parody film Pasukob, where the storyline is twisted in comedic flair.

Awards and recognitions