The real-life trauma behind Derick Cabrido’s horror films

“All my films are based on truth,” said Cabrido. “I don’t invent nightmares; I document them.”

Derick Cabrido never set out to be a horror filmmaker.

 “To be honest, I never expected to do horror films,” he told radar Entertainment recently. “My dream before was to make romantic films with magic realism. The kind of films I watched were ‘Like Water for Chocolate,’ ‘Chocolat,’ and ‘Pan’s Labyrinth.’ That was where I thought I was headed.”

But somewhere between ‘Tuos’—his Cinemalaya debut that placed Nora Aunor in a myth-infused tragedy—and the possession film ‘Clarita’ with Jodi Sta. Maria, he realized he had crossed into horror almost by accident.

“My second film already had a kapre. I thought it was a literary piece on Filipino tradition, but then I realized, ‘Aba, Nora Aunor got raped by a kapre!’ My next movie, ‘Purgatoryo,’ was already attached to social realism, but still horror. Then came ‘Clarita.’ From then on, sunod-sunod na.”

The irony isn’t lost on him. Cabrido, who cut his teeth directing news and documentaries for GMA 7, built his career chronicling events often more terrifying than fiction. “Coming from docus, subconsciously, I guess it’s because I’ve seen the worst,” he said.

“I interviewed families who lost loved ones. I covered the Ampatuan massacre, the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars, and Super Typhoon Yolanda. During Yolanda, on our way to ground zero in Tacloban, we were laughing at first kasi may pintuan nakasabit sa puno. Later, we saw cars. A little while more, we witnessed how it destroyed an entire town. We walked among dead bodies. That’s the horror part for me—you get desensitized as a journalist. Hindi ka na conscious na ang katabi mo bangkay na pala.”

One moment still haunts him. “I remember bumping into a body on the street and telling someone, ‘Sir, there’s another one here.’” Back in Manila, one teammate needed debriefing after hearing voices while driving. “That’s when I realized—this had an effect on me. Maybe that’s why I gravitated toward horror films.”

That journalistic training became his secret ingredient. His horror isn’t made of cheap thrills but of lived trauma. “All my films are based on truth,” he pointed out. “Clarita” grew out of a “Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho” segment he directed, while “Purgatoryo” was inspired by a “Reporters’ Notebook” documentary. Even “P77,” a class satire, came from stories passed around GMA Public Affairs. Cabrido doesn’t invent nightmares; he documents them, then reframes them as cautionary tales.

The principle of evidence—central to documentaries—carries into his fiction. When audiences recoil at scenes in ‘Clarita’ or ‘Purgatoryo,’ the fear is deeper because it is anchored in what could be real. In Cabrido’s world, monsters aren’t just special effects; they are extensions of Filipino anxieties about poverty, violence, and survival.