Sundo 2009

Vanessa Vanessa Andres is killed after a visit from her long-dead husband. The film then shifts to Romano as a retired military operative who has withdrawn from the world after a brutal stretch of injuries. He discovers a chilling ability: he can see ghosts hovering around people who are about to face sudden, disastrous deaths. Worried for his blind sister Isabel, he is persuaded to return to Manila with the help of Louella, a doctor and his childhood friend who harbors something deeper than friendship for him.

An aspiring actress, Kristina, a widow, Lumen, and her nephew Eric join Romano, Isabel, and Louella, along with Louella’s driver Baste, on a van ride back toward the city. On the road, Romano wakes from a dream and manages to warn Baste of an impending tragedy; yet the moment he steps out to survey the scene, a cluster of apparitions gathers around the vehicle. The ghosts—an old man, a young woman with hair veiling her face, two other men, and a woman who resembles his mother—surround him while a faint cry of a baby echoes from nowhere. The group stops to rest and eat in a restaurant in Baguio. When Lumen goes to the ladies’ room, one of the male ghosts materializes before Romano. Not long after, Lumen dies in a brutal moment when a rail spike pins her head to the ground, and Eric follows soon after, electrocuted while attending Lumen’s husband’s wake, just as another male ghost seizes Romano’s attention.

Seeking answers, they consult a local elder who explains that Romano’s ability stems from an open third eye and that the ghosts he sees are called Sundo—Death’s agents who fetch people who are about to die. A Sundo can be a spouse, a sibling, a parent, or a close friend who has previously died and shares a bond with the intended victim. Because Romano prevented the earlier accident from happening, Death collects the lives of those who were “meant” to die, but now their debt remains and will be paid regardless. After this talk, the group tries to piece together the math of seven souls aboard the van—Romano only sees five ghosts—and Romano wonders whether the ghost of the supposed mother figure belongs to him or to Isabel.

Baste’s Sundo turns out to be his grandfather, who raised him, while Kristina’s Sundo proves to be a twin sister with hair hidden from view, a sister she never knew existed. With this new knowledge, the three—Romano, Isabel, and Louella—decide to spend the night in Louella’s apartment. Louella, overcome with emotion, finally confesses that the invisible crying baby is her own Sundo: the child she aborted while in medical school.

In a later moment, Romano is drawn to the balcony by Isabel; when he realizes she is already dead, Death pushes him over the edge. He sinks into a pool, regains consciousness, and surfaces to find Louella in tears, insisting she cannot be his Sundo because she has already repaid Death with Isabel’s life. Romano comes to understand that Louella was the one who killed his sister, and a flashback shows Louella smothering Isabel with a pillow. The weight of this reveal drives him to the water’s edge, where his own body floats—evidence that he has become Death’s Sundo. Death then claims Louella as her own, and the film closes on a stark, unsettling note as the Grim Reaper lunges toward the audience.