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With Danny Keogh, Marius Weyers, Nomsa Nene, Carl Beukes Directed by Ken Kaplan With high hopes this South African made "horror movie" was placed into the VCR slot. By the end the "finally, a local horror movie!" anticipation was replaced by a sad sense of disappointment. Not because it was badly made, but due to its failure to push beyond the limited SA filmmaking borders. Hints that it transcended the usual political and slapstick pigeonholes turned out to be misleading. Fascist racists from the past want to resurrect a new order in South Africa via a "pure" bloodline (political?), while the soundtrack constantly plods into horrendous keyboard horns that would sit comfortably in a Leon Schuster movie (slapstick?). The vampire angle is not exactly gothic, but small town SA. Seen as a black comedy, the soundtrack seems to insist on preempting the claim, as opposed to the viewer finding it in the images. This awful incidental music (which apparently won an award!) is lifted by fine local tunes from Fetish, Springbok Nude Girls and a classic Four Jacks & A Jill track. With all of its flaws, it is still important to catch this movie, not just because of the effort that's gone into it, but to get the SA movie industry to the point where it can find its own voice beyond its political past. This may take a while - the only way to do it is by making and supporting more movies with a wider genre target. 2 / C - PB 1 2 3 4 5 6 A - B - C |
never let a review decide for you, but for those who need a rating, see the Flamedrop scale below
| 6
- Volcanic
5 - Blistering 4 - Hot 3 - Smolder 2 - Room Temperature 1 - Fizzled 0 - Extinguished |
A:
Multi-Viewing Potential |
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