Look out! He's got a knife!

Movie review: Dust Devil

In Namibia, in the early '90s a serial killer is travelling from town to town, killing men and women alike, dismembering their bodies and painting the walls with their blood. A black cop, feeling out of place in a white police force and still racked with guilt over the death of his son and the departure of his wife fifteen years earlier, investigates and is drawn into a web of seemingly supernatural occurances. Meanwhile an American woman flees her unhappy marriage in South Africa, crosses the border and encounters the killer.

I'd wanted to see Dust Devil since first reading about it in Fangoria in the early '90s. I was a fan of writer/director Richard Stanley's first film, Hardware, which was basically a 2000AD strip come to life (quite literally: they sued) made with no money and lots of style. Imagine Dario Argento directing a Terminator rip-off set entirely in one room and with a soundtrack by Ministry & Motorhead.

But for most of the intervening years, it seemed that I would never get to see it. The movie, purportedly a difficult shoot, was finally taken out of Richard Stanley's hands and finished by Mirimax's editors; twenty minutes was removed and the actors were dubbed with inappropriate American accents. Stanley raised money himself to finish it, and showed it in film festivals, but the rights to the movie were tied up in a Gordian knot and it was too small a movie for anyone to bother spending the money to extricate it. To date the only legal way to see the uncut version is on an out-of-print German dvd.

I didn't see it on dvd. I had to resort to less than legal means. My flatmate has yelled at me for using up so much internet traffic but WHAT THE FUCK it was worth it.

Stanley seems to have been desperate to get out of the cramped Hardware room. Dust Devil is filmed on location, and it really makes the most of that beautiful country, with many dizzying crane & helicopter shots showcasing the scenery while demonstrating the characters' isolation.

Technically the movie is superb, but script-wise it's a mess. It attempts to integrate serial murder, police procedural, African spirituality, racial politics, and heavy allegory. Most of these elements don't really work, but the ways in which they don't work are consistently fascinating.

The acting is a mixed bag. Zakes Mokae is great as Ben, the cop. He was terrifying as the villain in The Serpent and the Rainbow and it's nice to see him in a heroic role. Chelsea Field is competent but unmemorable as Wendy. Robert Burke is sometimes great and sometimes terrible as the Dust Devil - this is quite frustrating. Marianne Sägebrecht phones in her small role as the coroner, Rufus Swart is horrible as Wendy's loutish South African husband Joe, and John Matshikiza is excellent as drive-in owner/spiritual advisor Joe, despite being saddled with the awkward narration.

The movie displays more of Argento's influence (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is name checked), with more than a hint of Sergio Leone thrown in. Despite the slow pace and lack of real scares (or - surprisingly - much gore, though there are a couple of nasty scenes), it's never boring and often beautifully surreal.

I'd say "recommended to open-minded horror fans" but you'll probably never see it so never mind.

Edit: In comments, hix mentions Stanley's production diary for this movie. Guess what? It's online here. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

Posted by pearce at August 31, 2005 2:59 PM