Dust Devil (1992)

The spirit of the desert has taken human form (Robert John Burke) and wishes to make his way back to the spirit world.  To do this, he must travel the desert, seeking out those who have lost everything and wish to end their lives, collecting parts from them until he has enough to cross over.

Enter Wendy (Chelsea Field), a woman from Johannesburg who strikes out for the Namibian desert in an effort to distance herself from her abusive husband Mark (Rufus Swart).  She soon crosses paths with the Dust Devil who, instead of immediately killing her, decides to spend some time.  Their time together ends quickly when she realizes what he is.

Also on the trail of the Dust Devil is Ben Mukarob (Zakes Mokae), a police officer in the dying town of Bethany who enters the picture after the brutal murder of a local woman.  His wife gone, his son dead and his town slowly fading, Mukarob finds himself seeking the aid of Joe (John Matshikiza), a local shaman, despite his initial disbelief.  With Joe's help he hopes to destroy the Dust Devil once and for all - and not become its next vessel.

Director Richard Stanley is responsible for what I consider one of the best post-apocalyptic slasher films ever: Hardware.  Initially, many people hated that film, but I always found the world it inhabits to be quite interesting and visually appealing, even if a bit of the dialogue was corny.  I feel the same with Dust Devil.  Sometimes the writing is a bit off, but it is saved by being a visual beauty of a film, taking advantage of Namibian desert as well as Kolmanskop, an abandoned town, that figures into the last part of the film and exudes atmosphere all on its own.

There are a few scenes which aim for symbolism about the then-recent achievement of independence with Namibia, largely when Mark is beaten savagely in a bar in Bethany for being South African and being told that "South Africa has no wife now."  I'm sure there's much more in there that's subtle that I am missing.

It is strange that at least one Namibian horror film keeps popping up whenever I do this challenge.  Maybe it's just the desert setting that lends itself to it.  Growing up in a desert area myself (in large part before it became as urban as it is), the feeling is understandable, and relatable.  Maybe that's why I enjoy these so much.

Dust Devil (1992)
Time: 87 minutes
Starring: Robert John Burke, Chelsea Field, Zakes Mokae
Director: Richard Stanley

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's...
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman'...
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in...
Read more