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Movie poster for Trese After Dark (2021)

Trese After Dark

2021
36m
PG-13 · English
Director: Gio Puyat
Search on Netflix

Overview

Stars and creators gather to discuss "Trese," from its Filipino folklore inspirations to the comic's beginnings and its journey to an anime series.

Cast

10 people

Reviews

4 min read

The Folklore Behind the Screen: How Trese After Dark Reveals What We Carry

I’ll admit it: I came to Trese After Dark expecting a standard making-of featurette, the kind that arrives on streaming platforms like a free side of fries—filling, but forgettable. What I found instead was something quieter, more intimate, and far more revealing. This 36-minute documentary short isn’t just about the journey of Trese from comic to anime; it’s about the weight of stories we inherit, the ones we choose to retell, and the way folklore seeps into modern art like ink into paper.

It’s a conversation, really—one that happens in a dimly lit room, where the voices of creators and cast members blur into a single, collective memory.

A shadowy figure stands in a neon-lit alley, the glow of the city reflecting off wet pavement.

The documentary’s structure is deceptively simple: a roundtable of sorts, where the people behind Trese—writers, animators, actors—sit together and talk. There’s no flashy narration, no dramatic reenactments of the comic’s creation. Just voices, layered over images of Manila’s streets, its neon signs flickering like the ghosts of old myths.

The effect is oddly hypnotic. You’re not watching a behind-the-scenes feature so much as eavesdropping on a family discussion about what it means to bring Filipino folklore to life in a medium that’s often dominated by Western or Japanese narratives.

What strikes me most is how Trese After Dark treats folklore not as a static relic, but as something alive, something that breathes through the cracks of modern storytelling. Budjette Tan, the comic’s co-creator, speaks about the aswang and tikbalang not as monsters to be feared, but as figures that carry the weight of cultural memory. There’s a moment where he describes how these creatures were used in oral traditions to explain the unexplainable—to make sense of loss, of displacement, of the things that haunt us.

Audience Opinions

Limited evidence
"A short companion for Trese fans built around folklore, dark moments and cast talk, with dialogue and depth splitting viewers."

Trese After Dark is a short documentary companion to the Trese world — mysteries, folklore, and a cast-and-creators discussion. Lore and the darkest stretches land well; the central mysteries carry a lot, and the lead comes across as cool. Friction is execution: dialogue that doesn’t land, and a wish for longer, deeper time with the main character. People also hunted for where to watch and stream it online.

What viewers praise
  • Folklore hook Folklore elements and the mysteries hold the story, especially when it gets really dark.
  • Cast and creators discussion Cast and creators discussion adds extra context and reaction material around Trese.
Common complaints
  • Dialogue Dialogue doesn’t land well and weakens the experience.
  • Wanted more depth The main character feels cool but less interesting than she could be — leaves you wanting longer exploration.
Recommended for
Fans of Trese and Philippine folklore who want background and tone Viewers who like short behind-the-scenes documentaries with cast and creator chat

Buzz & Rumors

Public reports

They built an aftershow inside Alexandra's bar, then left the lights on.

Netflix Philippines posted the teaser on June 10, 2021, the same window Trese arrived in the United States. The extra runs 35 minutes. Gio Puyat directed. Toni Potenciano wrote. Hosts Atom Araullo and Yvette Tan plant themselves at the Diabolical, the bar Alexandra Trese runs in the comics, and walk a table through folklore, the komiks, and the jump to anime,. Araullo told Twitter, "When you're done watching Trese, come hang out with us at the Diabolical on 'Trese After Dark,' a Netflix Special." Yvette Tan, a horror writer, added, "Some things we can only share After Dark." latestnetflix.com's read is that Both specials were sold as a pair for June 11 in the Philippines.

Liza Soberano sat with Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, the pair who drew the black-and-white books. She tweeted that it was "surreal" to ask Budjette a question she had been carrying since she read them. Shay Mitchell is in the same room. Two Alexandras, one aftershow. Soberano voices the Filipino dub. Mitchell voices English. Wikipedia's series page says Soberano was hesitant because voice work is a different game from the dramas that made her famous, and a coach pushed her pitch down. Mitchell called the English sessions "super fun, but intense," and she had to say some lines in Filipino with a Zoom dialect coach. That dual-cast is the closest thing this short has to a tabloid split. Filipino comment threads argued about Soberano's delivery. The aftershow puts both women in one conversation instead of picking a winner. Netflix Philippines had already posted a face-to-face clip of the two of them meeting Manila's creatures.

The table was a season-2 pitch. Jay Oliva, Tanya Yuson, Mihk Vergara, and Zig Marasigan fill the rest of the seats,. Oliva is the showrunner who read the comics on a plane to Manila because there was no time to mail the books. Yuson had been trying to adapt Trese since 2009. The writers stitched the first three volumes into one arc on purpose. A week after premiere Oliva told CNN Philippines that Netflix said the show was "really strong" and "reliant on the Philippine market," and that if ratings held he did not see why they would not get multiple seasons. NME had him saying he and Tanya had already plotted where a second season would go, and Budjette talking about a grand plan of 13 books because trese means thirteen.

That last part is the rumor you can actually print. Netflix has not publicly ordered season 2. Wikipedia still lists one season of six episodes. Trese After Dark now plays like a victory-lap tape for a renewal that never posted. UDD, formerly Up Dharma Down, played the launch. The countdown was 13 minutes because of the name. The first 4 minutes and 45 seconds of the series dropped as a teaser because those numbers add to 13. The aftershow is still on the service. Creators in a fake bar, explaining a Manila Netflix was willing to premiere and then, quietly, leave sitting at six episodes.

Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.

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