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The Mutations/The Freakmaker (1974) – OHMC 2022 Day 22

the mutations film poster
October Horror Movie Challenge 2022

The Mutations (UK, 1974)

When I first spotted The Freakmaker listed on Shudder, I thought the poster looked familiar even if the name wasn’t. It wasn’t until I googled it that I realised this was the British film known as The Mutations, which I’d been meaning to watch for a very long time.

I dimly remember being frightened by stills from The Mutations as a child. While I have no idea if I actually read anything about the plot, the images of the film’s monstrous hybrids were the literal stuff of nightmare to nine-year-old me. I was too young to see the film at the time, but I hoped to catch up with it one day. Well, it’s taken the best part of 50 years to do so.

The Mutations is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

The Mutations 1

Synopsis

Professor Nolter (Donald Pleasance) is a mad scientist. If you couldn’t work this out from his constant babble of pseudoscience, the German accent would be a dead giveaway. I’m not sure mad scientists were allowed to be anything other than German in British films of this era.

In particular, the professor is obsessed with creating plant/human hybrids. This is going to end world hunger or something, although this isn’t the kind of film to worry about specifics. The professor relies on Lynch (a pre-Doctor Who Tom Baker), a brutish circus owner, to find involuntary test subjects for his experiments in mutation. Because London is such a small town, the first victim turns out to be one of the professor’s offensively groovy students.

The relationship between the professor and Lynch is a fractious one, built on shaky foundations of mutual convenience and lies. Lynch was born with congenital facial deformities and the professor has promised to cure these once he has full control of the human genome. This will be any day now. Until then, however, the professor pays Lynch in failed experiments he can add to his freak show.

Yes, a big part of this film revolves around what was, even in 1974, an anachronistically awful freak show. We join the performers on and off stage as they rail against the indignities perpetrated upon them by Lynch.

Inevitably, we end up with a cycle of students going missing, other students looking for them, and these students going missing in turn as the professor transforms them into creatures beyond recognition. So how long will it be before the professor’s experiments rise up and turn against him? Around 92 minutes, if the listed runtime is to be believed.

The Mutations 3

General Thoughts

Despite being a zero-budget exploitation film, The Mutations was the final directorial outing for Jack Cardiff. Best known as a cinematographer, he had worked on films like The African Queen, The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. The 1970s were clearly not kind to Cardiff if he found himself reduced to this. There is some artistic ambition in the time lapse photography of the title sequence, but the rest of the film is a mess.

The pseudoscience in The Mutations is going to give any actual scientist an aneurysm. It is full of pontification about how scientists have no idea how mutations happen, along with thoughts about “The mysterious essence known as nucleic acid”. There is some inexplicable connection between Einstein’s work and the creation of plant/human hybrids. At one point, Professor Nolter unironically quotes Lysenko. Most entertainingly, he demonstrates a ray gun that allows him to reverse “fungal putrefaction”. Most impressively, however, the professor randomly pitches Jurassic Park during one of his lectures some 15 years before Michael Crichton wrote the first line of it.

In a film that already had the shelf-life of fresh fish, the freak show scenes have aged worst. The screenwriters were clearly influenced by Todd Browning’s notorious 1932 film Freaks, casting former freak show performers as Browning did, and even lifting some scenes wholesale. The sequence where we watch the show itself, along with the audience’s braying reactions, makes for especially uncomfortable viewing.

It was interesting to see the performer known as Popeye, however. As the stage name suggests, his schtick was to pop his eyeballs out of their sockets. I remember reading about him in Ripley’s Believe it or Not! as a kid, although I’d never considered there may be footage of his act out there.

The Mutations 4

Verdict

In most respects, The Mutations is the worst kind of B-movie schlock. It is cheap, exploitative and doesn’t have an original idea to call its own. The dialogue is terrible, the acting wooden, and everything is so silly as to beggar belief. It’s a bit too nasty to be campy fun and it’s not good enough to be a cult classic. And yet for all these faults, it remains perfectly watchable.

The main saving grace is that The Mutations is never dull. While almost every aspect of the story is painfully obvious, it’s daft and weird enough to engage. At heart, this is a 1950s monster movie given a coating of ’70s sleaze.

The costumes and makeup effects may not win any Oscars, but they’re surprisingly effective given how cheap the film looks. A little imagination goes a long way, and the creature design is the only place you’ll find any real imagination here. It’s possible that their cheapness actually helps, as their lack of symmetry and unnatural proportions make the monsters oddly unsettling.

I am not going to suggest for a moment that you drop everything and watch The Mutations now. There are plenty of horror films that would be better uses of your time. But if, late one night, you find yourself in the mood for something cheesy and all rough edges, you could do worse.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Werewolves Within (USA, 2021)
  2. Crystal Eyes (Argentina, 2018)
  3. Super Dark Times (USA, 2017)
  4. Thirst (Australia, 1979)
  5. A Ghost Waits (USA, 2020)
  6. Cemetery of Terror (Mexico, 1985)
  7. I Came By (UK, 2022)
  8. 100 Monsters (Japan, 1968)
  9. Sea Fever (Ireland, 2020)
  10. Mill of the Stone Women (Italy, 1960)
  11. Glorious (USA, 2022)
  12. All the Moons (Spain, 2021)
  13. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (USA, 2021)
  14. Incantation (Taiwan, 2022)
  15. The Gore Gore Girls (USA, 1972)
  16. Luz: The Flower of Evil (Colombia, 2019)
  17. Butterfly Kisses (USA, 2018)
  18. The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (Italy, 1971)
  19. Saloum (Senegal, 2021)
  20. The Addiction (USA, 1995)
  21. Good Madam (South Africa, 2021)
  22. The Freakmaker/The Mutations (UK, 1974)
  23. The Long Walk (Laos, 2019)
  24. Errors of the Human Body (Germany, 2013)
  25. Eyes of Fire (USA, 1983)
  26. Caveat (Ireland, 2020)
  27. The White Reindeer (Finland, 1952)
  28. His House (UK, 2020)
  29. Tourist Trap (USA, 1979)
  30. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Sweden, 1922)
  31. Flux Gourmet (UK, 2022)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

If you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

Good Madam (2021) – OHMC 2022 Day 21

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022

Good Madam (South Africa, 2021)

While I’m not as averse to spoilers as most, I do sometimes enjoy going into films completely blind. It can be a risk not even to be able to set an expectation for what kind of horror film you’re watching, but some of my favourite viewing experiences have begun like that.

So I put Good Madam on my list without knowing anything except the country of origin. I was intrigued to see what a modern horror film from South Africa would be like. Beyond that, I didn’t so much as read a synopsis or watch a trailer. Let’s see how that gamble paid off.

Good Madam is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Good Madam 1

Synopsis

Good Madam takes place in an affluent suburb in modern-day South Africa. Tsidi is the single mother of a young daughter, Winnie. She has fallen out with her family over who should live in their shared home. With nowhere else to go, she turns to her estranged mother, Mavis, who works as a live-in maid. In particular, Mavis has spent decades working for Diane, a wealthy white woman in a very white suburb. Tsidi grew up here and has bad memories of her childhood.

While Mavis lives in Diane’s house, she is careful to remind her daughter and granddaughter that this is not their home. They are not to use any of Diane’s crockery, even though they share a kitchen, and they must remain quiet unless called for. When Tsidi challenges her mother by saying, “So we should pretend not to be here even though we are”, Mavis only agrees.

Now old and sick, Diane is largely an unseen presence in the women’s lives. Tsidi joins her mother in the constant work required to keep this large, empty house spotless. Only Mavis tends to Diane in her room, hurrying whenever Diane rings a bell. As Diane’s health worsens, strange manifestations occur throughout the house, hinting at a weakening between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Why are previous generations of servants buried in a private graveyard on the grounds? What is the meaning of the strange Ancient Egyptian inscriptions Tsidi keeps stumbling upon? And just what does Diane have planned as she prepares to enter the next world?

Good Madam 3

General Thoughts

As a white bloke who as never been to South Africa, I cheerfully admit to being out of my depth in trying to pick this film apart. I’ve read negative reviews from black critics who feel that this film is simply retreading old traumas rather than addressing them, especially given that the director is white. While this doesn’t seem to be a universal view, I feel very much unqualified to assess it.

I can still appreciate that this is very much a film about ownership. We have three generations of black women living in a house that will never be theirs. It is filled with carvings, sculptures and other artworks from across the continent, all now owned by a woman descended from colonists. Generations of servants are buried on the grounds, their bodies owned by their employers even into death. This is not a subtle metaphor.

For a while, I did wonder whether the film might be going in a different direction. It takes almost an hour for us to see Diane. Until then, we only hear her bell summoning Mavis to her room. I’d started to suspect that Diane had been dead for some time and a mere echo of her presence still ruled over the house, like the ghost of apartheid.

Good Madam 4

Verdict

Good Madam is certainly an unusual, beautifully crafted film with a lot to say. It did take some time for me to really engage with it, however. While I found myself admiring the skilful way it used sound and editing to create a creeping sense of dread, I grew impatient waiting for something to actually happen. Until about an hour in, I was wondering if this was really a horror film.

When the story finally shifts into gear, however, it proves worth the wait. There is an understated domestic horror here, reminiscent of films like Burnt Offerings and Skeleton Key. At the same time, iy i filled with political allegory about the lingering effects of apartheid in a post-colonial South Africa. The metaphors are obvious but handled deftly enough that I never felt smacked in the face by them.

I’m not sure if Good Madam will be to most horror fans’ tastes. While it is a powerful and even admirable film, it is sedate and rarely frightening. There are some unsettling moments and a real sense of dread but it is more interested in challenging than scaring us.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Werewolves Within (USA, 2021)
  2. Crystal Eyes (Argentina, 2018)
  3. Super Dark Times (USA, 2017)
  4. Thirst (Australia, 1979)
  5. A Ghost Waits (USA, 2020)
  6. Cemetery of Terror (Mexico, 1985)
  7. I Came By (UK, 2022)
  8. 100 Monsters (Japan, 1968)
  9. Sea Fever (Ireland, 2020)
  10. Mill of the Stone Women (Italy, 1960)
  11. Glorious (USA, 2022)
  12. All the Moons (Spain, 2021)
  13. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (USA, 2021)
  14. Incantation (Taiwan, 2022)
  15. The Gore Gore Girls (USA, 1972)
  16. Luz: The Flower of Evil (Colombia, 2019)
  17. Butterfly Kisses (USA, 2018)
  18. The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (Italy, 1971)
  19. Saloum (Senegal, 2021)
  20. The Addiction (USA, 1995)
  21. Good Madam (South Africa, 2021)
  22. The Freakmaker/The Mutations (UK, 1974)
  23. The Long Walk (Laos, 2019)
  24. Errors of the Human Body (Germany, 2013)
  25. Eyes of Fire (USA, 1983)
  26. Caveat (Ireland, 2020)
  27. The White Reindeer (Finland, 1952)
  28. His House (UK, 2020)
  29. Tourist Trap (USA, 1979)
  30. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Sweden, 1922)
  31. Flux Gourmet (UK, 2022)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

If you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

Eyes of Fire (1983) – OHMC 2022 Day 25

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022

Eyes of Fire (USA, 1983)

I only learnt of Eyes of Fire this year, which surprises me. While it reportedly had a very limited initial release, it still came out at a time when I was actively seeking out new horror films, reading fan magazines and constantly scanning the shelves at video shops. Yet somehow this one passed me by completely. Admittedly, it would be another decade before I developed a taste for folk horror, but the cover alone would have made this an instant rental. Let’s see what I’ve been missing for all these years.

Eyes of Fire is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

eyes of fire 1

Synopsis

Eyes of Fire takes place in Colonial America, in 1750. Fanny and Meg believe themselves to be the only survivors of a small backwoods settlement on the border between British and French territories. They have been picked up by French soldiers after straying into their grounds. We open as they tell their tragic story.

Fanny and Meg were part of a small group who fled a larger settlement after the preacher, Will Smythe, was accused of living in sin with two women. Smythe narrowly avoided being hanged for this when the rope snaps. This appears to be Leah’s doing, as she possesses an assortment of ill-defined psychic powers.

Despite being warned away by the local Shawnee people, the group take shelter in a remote valley. Abandoned cabins indicate that they are not the first white settlers to do so. The preacher is delighted when they find a young girl, apparently Shawnee, and decides he must convert her to Christianity. Leah is less pleased, however, as she can see the girl’s true demonic form.

With this serpent in their midst, the small community find themselves under escalating attack by supernatural forces. If any are to survive, they must uncover the dark secrets of the valley and the sinister witch who rules over all from the shadows.

eyes of fire 2

General Thoughts

Horror, like any other genre, goes through trends. Following the success of Stephen King’s Carrie in 1974, horror fiction and cinema was filled with children and young adults possessed of psychic powers. It’s something you don’t see much these days, so it’s oddly nostalgic to see the trope so prominent in Eyes of Fire. While Leah’s abilities eventually play a major role in the story, I did wonder at first if they had been shoehorned in to cash in on the trend.

Some of Leah’s visions could come from Twin Peaks. While Eyes of Fire presents a different kind of weirdness than Lynch, I can see the occasional parallel. Hell, there’s even a scene where the dialogue appears to have been recorded backwards and reversed it to make it sound off.

For something that looks and feels so much like a TV move of the early ’80s, it’s surprising when Eyes of Fire ventures into more adult areas. There is little gore, but late on in the film the spirits kill a cow and do things with its head. This is clearly not faked. Some of the spirits of the valley are naked when they appear, but unusually for the time, this is not presented in a titillating way at all. Even more unusually, the film is as casual about male nudity as female. It’s really quite refreshing in this respect.

It was interesting watching Eyes of Fire so soon after Luz: The Flower of Evil. While the two films are utterly different in tone and execution, they touch upon similar themes of the duality of good and evil in nature. Early on, a trapper reminds us “Everything that’s good has an evil side to it,” and “The devil is as natural as a brook or a tree.”

eyes of fire 3

Verdict

Sometimes a film comes along that utterly confounds me. I really don’t know what to make of Eyes of Fire. Hell, I’m not even sure if I liked it. Even so, it’s unique enough that I’m at least glad to have watched it.

While I’m guessing Eyes of Fire was shot on a shoestring, it doesn’t always look cheap. The sets and costumes are largely convincing. They are helped enormously by the rustic and often beautiful locations, which sell both the period and remoteness of the community well.

The visual effects are never less than interesting. While some are cheaply done and obvious in their execution, such as the witch kneeling down into a trench to vanish, they are executed imaginatively. There are also a surprising number of explosions for what is largely a sedate film. When the settlers take up arms against the spirits, the entities explode like petrol bombs when shot. It is a genuinely odd sequence, reminiscent of the exploding aliens from Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon.

Tonally, Eyes of Fire is all over the place. It seems to have aspirations of serious drama but is oddly campy. This may not have been deliberate. Part of the unevenness is down to the wildly different abilities of the cast. Some sell their roles well, even when given ludicrous things to say and do, but Dennis Lipscomb’s performance as the preacher seems to have been plucked off the stage of a high-school production of The Crucible.

The biggest problem with Eyes of Fire, however, is the editing. Scenes chop and change so abruptly that I kept being taken out of the film as I tried to work out what the hell was going on. While this doesn’t quite render the story incoherent, it does present an unnecessary impediment. Apparently, there is an extended cut, titled Cry Blue Sky, which restores 30 minutes of footage. I’m tempted to watch it to see if it solves some of these problems.

Mainly, I wonder if Eyes of Fire was simply ahead of its time. If it had been made today, would it have been handled more like an A24 film than a straight-to-video cheapie? There are some engaging ideas and unusual storytelling here, but picking them out from the general chaos takes real work.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Werewolves Within (USA, 2021)
  2. Crystal Eyes (Argentina, 2018)
  3. Super Dark Times (USA, 2017)
  4. Thirst (Australia, 1979)
  5. A Ghost Waits (USA, 2020)
  6. Cemetery of Terror (Mexico, 1985)
  7. I Came By (UK, 2022)
  8. 100 Monsters (Japan, 1968)
  9. Sea Fever (Ireland, 2020)
  10. Mill of the Stone Women (Italy, 1960)
  11. Glorious (USA, 2022)
  12. All the Moons (Spain, 2021)
  13. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (USA, 2021)
  14. Incantation (Taiwan, 2022)
  15. The Gore Gore Girls (USA, 1972)
  16. Luz: The Flower of Evil (Colombia, 2019)
  17. Butterfly Kisses (USA, 2018)
  18. The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (Italy, 1971)
  19. Saloum (Senegal, 2021)
  20. The Addiction (USA, 1995)
  21. Good Madam (South Africa, 2021)
  22. The Freakmaker/The Mutations (UK, 1974)
  23. The Long Walk (Laos, 2019)
  24. Errors of the Human Body (Germany, 2013)
  25. Eyes of Fire (USA, 1983)
  26. Caveat (Ireland, 2020)
  27. The White Reindeer (Finland, 1952)
  28. His House (UK, 2020)
  29. Tourist Trap (USA, 1979)
  30. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Sweden, 1922)
  31. Flux Gourmet (UK, 2022)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

If you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

The Addiction (2021) – OHMC 2022 Day 20

the addiction film poster
October Horror Movie Challenge 2022

The Addiction (USA, 1995)

One of weirder aspects of getting old is the number of false memories you develop. Your own experiences blend with stories you’ve been told, things you’ve meant to do and, sometimes, pure fantasy. It gets to the point you can no longer really trust the stories you tell yourself.

I’ve spent much of the past 27 years convinced that I’d seen The Addiction. When it popped up on Shudder, however, and I watched the trailer, I realised that I must have been thinking about a completely different film. Of course, I have no idea what film that is. Maybe when I work that out, I’ll discover I haven’t seen it either. What I’m saying is that my brain is basically porridge now.

Anyway, let’s watch The Addiction for real this time.

The Addiction is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

The Addiction 1

Synopsis

Kathleen is a student at New York University, doing a PhD in philosophy. This mainly involves watching footage of atrocities, drinking coffee and talking like a character from an existentialist novel. When a vampire who calls herself Casanova forces Kathleen into a dark alley and chows down, her life is transformed.

As well as donning dark glasses, covering the mirrors in her flat and switching to a more sanguineous diet, Kathleen grows increasingly assertive and abrasive. She starts preying on strangers, acquaintances and even her closest friends. Eventually, she encounters Peina, a far more experienced vampire, who has learnt to control his condition and lives something like a normal life. He is the first to frame Kathleen’s condition in terms of addiction, exhorting her to read William S Burroughs to better understand it.

Will Kathleen be able to turn her un-life around? Is self-knowledge the answer to vampirism? And what’s happened to all the people Kathleen’s been biting anyway?

The Addiction 2

General Thoughts

Most vampire stories are metaphors for some aspect of the human experience. The Addiction is simply more upfront about its themes than most. Between Kathleen’s use of a syringe to feed from her first victim to sharing heroin with another to draw him in, this is not a subtle allegory. Kathleen’s fear of AIDS in the early stages of her transformation feels utterly rooted in the drug culture of the time. Eventually, we even see her overdose on blood. I am reminded of Garth Marenghi telling us, “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards.”

Rooting the story in academia does at least give us a reason for the relentlessly philosophical examination of vampirism. As Kathleen embraces her new nature, she interprets it very much through the lens of her studies. At the same time, her growing detachment from the emotional impact of the atrocities she analyses highlights her steady loss of humanity. This philosophical examination rarely feels more than superficial, however, even when Kathleen uses her understanding of her condition to shape her PhD defence.

While Christopher Walken gets second billing, his role is scarcely more than a cameo. Admittedly, few supporting characters get much screen time, but from the credits, you might expect more. His character is a highpoint of the film, presenting a much-needed challenge to Kathleen’s bullshit. Of course, this still being The Addiction, he issues this challenge by quoting beat writers, poets and philosophers…

The Addiction does serve well as a snapshot of 1990s New York City. The characters and the world they move through are wonderfully observed, taking me back to my own days of living there. The brutal mind-your-own-business aspect of New York life comes across especially well. At one point, Kathleen wanders the streets of Greenwich Village covered in blood as passers-by ignore her. That is the NYC I remember.

The Addiction 3

Verdict

The Addiction may be the most pretentious horror film I’ve ever seen. This isn’t to say it’s bad, but it does make hard to stomach sometimes. Characters don’t have conversations — they just trade quotes. If you were to take a shot every time someone mentions Nietzsche, Kierkegaard or Baudelaire, you would be in a coma before the first act was through.

At the same time, there is some real artistic vision here. The Addiction is a beautiful film to look at, with its moody shadows and simple-but-effective cinematography. It has a terrific cast who, barring one scene of jarring overacting as Kathleen fails to tempt a missionary, sell the film’s conceits well. My only technical complaint was the surprisingly anaemic sound. I had to turn my volume up to maximum to follow the dialogue and it still sounded tinny.

For all this fancy window dressing, however, The Addiction is a pretty straightforward vampire story. It brings out a few surprises in the final act and tries for an unexpected resolution, but mostly follows well-worn tropes. There’s nothing wrong with this — it’s usually the incidental details that give life to horror films — but I was surprised at how obvious it felt.

Ultimately, I’ll credit The Addiction for being ambitious, unusual and stylish, but I’m not sure that means I liked it. Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d seen it when it first came out. Not only is it a film of its time, but I think it’s one that might have appealed more when I was younger. Now, however, it just seems too self-important and more than a little silly.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Werewolves Within (USA, 2021)
  2. Crystal Eyes (Argentina, 2018)
  3. Super Dark Times (USA, 2017)
  4. Thirst (Australia, 1979)
  5. A Ghost Waits (USA, 2020)
  6. Cemetery of Terror (Mexico, 1985)
  7. I Came By (UK, 2022)
  8. 100 Monsters (Japan, 1968)
  9. Sea Fever (Ireland, 2020)
  10. Mill of the Stone Women (Italy, 1960)
  11. Glorious (USA, 2022)
  12. All the Moons (Spain, 2021)
  13. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (USA, 2021)
  14. Incantation (Taiwan, 2022)
  15. The Gore Gore Girls (USA, 1972)
  16. Luz: The Flower of Evil (Colombia, 2019)
  17. Butterfly Kisses (USA, 2018)
  18. The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (Italy, 1971)
  19. Saloum (Senegal, 2021)
  20. The Addiction (USA, 1995)
  21. Good Madam (South Africa, 2021)
  22. The Freakmaker/The Mutations (UK, 1974)
  23. The Long Walk (Laos, 2019)
  24. Errors of the Human Body (Germany, 2013)
  25. Eyes of Fire (USA, 1983)
  26. Caveat (Ireland, 2020)
  27. The White Reindeer (Finland, 1952)
  28. His House (UK, 2020)
  29. Tourist Trap (USA, 1979)
  30. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Sweden, 1922)
  31. Flux Gourmet (UK, 2022)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

If you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

Saloum (2021) – OHMC 2022 Day 19

saloum poster
October Horror Movie Challenge 2022

Saloum (Senegal, 2021)

Saloum was a last-minute addition to my October Horror Movie Challenge roster this year. When I saw that Shudder had added a horror film from Senegal, I knew it had to go on the list. While I’ve read that there are growing horror movie industries across the continent, especially in Nigeria and South Africa, the only horror film I can remember seeing from anywhere in Africa is Richard Stanley’s Dust Devil. Between Saloum and Good Madam, which I have on my roster in a few days, I hope I can start catching up on some of what I’ve been missing.

Saloum is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Saloum 1

Synopsis

In the midst of the 2003 coup in Guinea-Bissau, a small group of elite mercenaries known as the Bangui Hyenas are hired to get a Mexican cartel member to safety. They successfully flee on a small private aeroplane, but discover it is leaking fuel from a bullet hole. With reserves running low, the team are forced to land in the Saloum region of Senegal.

Searching for fuel and resin to repair the damaged fuel tank, the Hyenas come across a holiday resort on the coast. They are welcomed and drawn into the lives of the eccentric staff and residents. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that the area has a dark history, rooted in both human evil and something a little more supernatural.

Will our mercenaries survive the escalating threats they uncover? What is the source of the weird insect swarms that are killing the guests. And was the Hyenas’ arrive at the resort really an accident?

Saloum 2

General Thoughts

Saloum reminds me a little of From Dusk till Dawn. It starts off as an action film, with mercenaries on the run. Everything switches around the halfway point, however, as demons appear. Even so, it never quite stops being an action film. While Saloum is survival horror, the protagonists are competent and well-armed. The escalation feels more pulpy than frightening. Sadly, this is sometimes undermined by shaky camera work and rough editing, making it difficult to follow the action at key points.

It strikes me that Saloum feels like a modern sword-and-sorcery tale. Our protagonists are morally ambiguous warriors, fighting for survival, personal gain and revenge. One is even a shaman of sorts, wielding potions and powders that almost seem magical. While the protagonists are faced with eldritch forces, their combat skills are their salvation. The only difference lies in that they use hot lead rather than cold steel.

The monsters themselves are intriguing and nasty. They appear as humanoid locust swarms, rendered in convincing CGI that must have devoured a large part of the film’s budget. They are more sinister than mere ravening swarms, however. We learn that they destroy their victims’ senses, eating away from the inside. The only protection is not to hear their whispers in the first place, leading to some classic horror movie schemes in which the protagonists try to block out the sound.

As with Luz: The Flower of Evil, Saloum owes much to its beautiful locations. The huge, empty landscapes lend the film a sense of awe. At times, the aerial camera work feels a bit overdone, however. I suspect that the producers splashed out serious money on camera drones and wanted to see that budget on the screen.

Saloum 3

Verdict

Even after spending some time thinking about it, I still don’t know what to make of Saloum. It’s a lively film with striking visuals and some genuinely odd moments. At the same time, I found it difficult to connect with emotionally. When the action kicks off, the pace becomes frenetic and there are a lot of characters to keep track of. I wanted to feel more invested in individual fates, especially as some of them had fascinating backstories, but I always felt like I was skimming along the surface. While there is a powerful, if not exactly unique, parable about the futility of revenge in here somewhere, it gets diluted by all the chaos.

Maybe some of the distance I felt was unfamiliarity with the Bainuk folklore Saloum draws upon. There are numerous mentions of gods, entities and even people I assume the original audience would recognise. While I could pick up much of what I needed from context, I still felt like I was missing a few key pieces. I find myself wanting to read up on the folklore and history of the region and watch the film again to see if I get more out of it.

These quibbles aside, Saloum is a fast-paced, action-packed film set against stunning landscapes, filled with monsters, intrigue and unusual characters. I only suspect that there’s an even better film hiding under its surface.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Werewolves Within (USA, 2021)
  2. Crystal Eyes (Argentina, 2018)
  3. Super Dark Times (USA, 2017)
  4. Thirst (Australia, 1979)
  5. A Ghost Waits (USA, 2020)
  6. Cemetery of Terror (Mexico, 1985)
  7. I Came By (UK, 2022)
  8. 100 Monsters (Japan, 1968)
  9. Sea Fever (Ireland, 2020)
  10. Mill of the Stone Women (Italy, 1960)
  11. Glorious (USA, 2022)
  12. All the Moons (Spain, 2021)
  13. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (USA, 2021)
  14. Incantation (Taiwan, 2022)
  15. The Gore Gore Girls (USA, 1972)
  16. Luz: The Flower of Evil (Colombia, 2019)
  17. Butterfly Kisses (USA, 2018)
  18. The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (Italy, 1971)
  19. Saloum (Senegal, 2021)
  20. The Addiction (USA, 1995)
  21. Good Madam (South Africa, 2021)
  22. The Freakmaker/The Mutations (UK, 1974)
  23. The Long Walk (Laos, 2019)
  24. Errors of the Human Body (Germany, 2013)
  25. Eyes of Fire (USA, 1983)
  26. Caveat (Ireland, 2020)
  27. The White Reindeer (Finland, 1952)
  28. His House (UK, 2020)
  29. Tourist Trap (USA, 1979)
  30. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Sweden, 1922)
  31. Flux Gourmet (UK, 2022)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

If you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

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