Savannah Slashers, Were-Hyenas and Folk Witches - Four "Somali Gothic" Horror Films
Savannah Slashers, Were-Hyenas and Folk Witches - Four "Somali Gothic" Horror Films
(a mini-update)
(a mini-update)
The Kaniisadda Muqdisho (or the Cattedrale di Mogadiscio) - a landmark of Colonial Mogadishu built in the Normano-Arab Gothic style of Sicily's churches. It features prominently in many horror films from the 50s in the Somali Protectorate
"In every meaning of the word, the Somalis are a haunted race. The camel nomad, though a devout Mohammetan, sees myriad ghosts and spirits cavorting around the vast plains. He consults with the aloof witchmen of the Yibir to divine his future. He wears Koranic charms crafted by ascetic murshids living in the bush to ward off angry jinn. This haunted character is not the fearful supernaturalism of the Crimean villager, but more akin to that of the Irishmen closer to our own shores. Both the Somali and the Irish do not fear the unknown hallows of the world, but respect their power." [1]
--- Richard Burton
To foreign cinephiles, Somali film is most famous for producing quality offerings in three genres - (occasionally melodramatic) historical romances, the Ogaden Osterns [2] and Afro-Futurist thrillers [3]. It's the last of those three that informs what most people think of when they hear the words "Somali movies"; a result of the genre's deep association with the Individualist Collectivism ideology [4] and cult of technological progress fostered by the XHKS government during the boom years of the Kediye presidency. Roaring engines, pounding machinery, far-future retellings of folk tales, distorted soundtracks, cosmic settings - Somalia's Afro-Futurist cinema has been central in the development of the genre.
Comparatively left in the shadows, however, is the impressive catalogue of horror films produced from before independence to today in the Blue Star Republic. Although the movies run the gamut of themes and topics, the very best of Somali horror is often of the Somali Gothic style - an African mirror of the simutaneously emerging Italian Gothic genre. Both Italian and Somali films portrayed Gothic staples in a stylish and idiosyncratic way, taking a daring approach to the supernatural, but where Italian films often featured a sinister eroticism - with menacing yet seductive witches, vampires and ghosts - Somali Gothic trades the heightened sexuality for a melancholy focus on decay and ruin.
Since it's both the hundredth anniversary of Red October [in the Old Calender, at least] and the leadup to Halloween, today we're going to be ranking Somalia's ten best gothic horror films from the colonial period till the 80s.
1 - The Evil of Our Deeds
Initially released in Arabic under the title "Wa min Sayi’aati A’maalinaa", a title taken from the supplication read before Friday Prayer in Sunni Islam which asks God to forgive the participants for "the evil in [them]selves and the evil in [their] deeds", this tale of witchcraft plays out in the halls and classrooms of Somalia's elite Hargeisa Technical University. But at the academy, everything isn't as it should be: one of its students is murdered horrifically, a sudden infestation of vermin causes maggots and pouched rats to rain from the ceiling and there’s some kind of conspiracy afoot that causes the sinister teachers to close ranks around their elusive director.
2 - Hunter
Perhaps the Somali horror film most well-known abroad, Ugaadhsade is a movie about a ritual serial killer that stalks the streets of 80s Mogadishu - murdering with seeming impunity - and the Hangash internal intelligence officers assigned to the task of stopping their reign of terror. Hunter is a fragmented and loosely correlated fever dream of a film, replete with narrative loose ends, disturbing set pieces, and dramatic shifts in both pacing and tone - swinging between the driving suspense of a traditional slasher film and jarring melancholy. Decay is everywhere in this film: from the physical realm with rotting animal carcasses or crumbling colonial era buildings - to that of spirit, shown through the increasingly bestial actions of the slasher and the frenzied slipping of the city's populace into psychosis with every fresh atrocity. Although the team that worked on Hunter has been tight-lipped about their intentions when creating the film, many critics read the movie as a commentary on how the crash modernization of the SDR had created a "psychic split" in the country, where clash of past and future abutting in so short a time left the nation adrift without a sense of history or direction.
3 - Unholy Hunger
This movie is as campy as they come and full of gore. Following the story of a village in the Dervish era as it tries to protect itself from the depredations of a pack of roving were-hyenas who use cursed magic staves to assume monstrous half-man shapes. Iniially
appearing as a simple tale about "marauding nomads and heroic farmers", the plot twist halfway through the film forces the viewers to reconsider exactly who is to blame for the violence. Under a thin layer of gratuitous blood and guts, Unholy Hunger presents complex (if grim) look into the tensions between Somalia's settled and nomadic heritage.
4 - The Longest Detour
Also called Drive into Hell, this film centers around a vacationing Italian socialite who takes a detour off the National Coastal Highway running from Kismaayo to Boosaaso - and accidentally comes face to face with the Devil. It’s an encounter that leads her to a derelict mansion appearing inexplicably in the bush, where her story becomes interwoven with that of a set of surrealist, Calvinoesque characters, as reality and hallucination become more and more indistinct. In a nod to the film Orfeu Negro, she descends down into an allegorical hell, filled with subtle imagery from both the Italian classic Dante's Inferno and Islamic understandings of Jahannam (Gehenna.)
Initially released in Arabic under the title "Wa min Sayi’aati A’maalinaa", a title taken from the supplication read before Friday Prayer in Sunni Islam which asks God to forgive the participants for "the evil in [them]selves and the evil in [their] deeds", this tale of witchcraft plays out in the halls and classrooms of Somalia's elite Hargeisa Technical University. But at the academy, everything isn't as it should be: one of its students is murdered horrifically, a sudden infestation of vermin causes maggots and pouched rats to rain from the ceiling and there’s some kind of conspiracy afoot that causes the sinister teachers to close ranks around their elusive director.
2 - Hunter
Perhaps the Somali horror film most well-known abroad, Ugaadhsade is a movie about a ritual serial killer that stalks the streets of 80s Mogadishu - murdering with seeming impunity - and the Hangash internal intelligence officers assigned to the task of stopping their reign of terror. Hunter is a fragmented and loosely correlated fever dream of a film, replete with narrative loose ends, disturbing set pieces, and dramatic shifts in both pacing and tone - swinging between the driving suspense of a traditional slasher film and jarring melancholy. Decay is everywhere in this film: from the physical realm with rotting animal carcasses or crumbling colonial era buildings - to that of spirit, shown through the increasingly bestial actions of the slasher and the frenzied slipping of the city's populace into psychosis with every fresh atrocity. Although the team that worked on Hunter has been tight-lipped about their intentions when creating the film, many critics read the movie as a commentary on how the crash modernization of the SDR had created a "psychic split" in the country, where clash of past and future abutting in so short a time left the nation adrift without a sense of history or direction.
3 - Unholy Hunger
This movie is as campy as they come and full of gore. Following the story of a village in the Dervish era as it tries to protect itself from the depredations of a pack of roving were-hyenas who use cursed magic staves to assume monstrous half-man shapes. Iniially
appearing as a simple tale about "marauding nomads and heroic farmers", the plot twist halfway through the film forces the viewers to reconsider exactly who is to blame for the violence. Under a thin layer of gratuitous blood and guts, Unholy Hunger presents complex (if grim) look into the tensions between Somalia's settled and nomadic heritage.
4 - The Longest Detour
Also called Drive into Hell, this film centers around a vacationing Italian socialite who takes a detour off the National Coastal Highway running from Kismaayo to Boosaaso - and accidentally comes face to face with the Devil. It’s an encounter that leads her to a derelict mansion appearing inexplicably in the bush, where her story becomes interwoven with that of a set of surrealist, Calvinoesque characters, as reality and hallucination become more and more indistinct. In a nod to the film Orfeu Negro, she descends down into an allegorical hell, filled with subtle imagery from both the Italian classic Dante's Inferno and Islamic understandings of Jahannam (Gehenna.)
- I guess this is a compliment? It's hard to tell through all the colonial-era racism.
- This isn't even my idea - though I've made up the name # there were literal Somali versions of Osterns set in the Haud with Ethiopian soldiers, nomads and Hangash intelligence officers in place of the "black hat" settlers, the Native Americans and the "good guy" settlers, respectively. Future updates are gonna be wild.
- Not quite OTL's Afro-Futurism, although many of the themes are similar. The Somali brand in particular has a dash of the usual Marxist-Leninist obsession with heavy industry and tendency to lionize heroes of socialism. The fact that Somali media is not state-controlled (for the most part) and XHKS communism is very different from Kremlin communism, however, means that these trends emerge in unorthodox ways.
- Not to tease, but I've had a lot of fun constructing the Somali version of the New Soviet Man. Weird communism = weird communist propaganda. Once again, stay tuned.
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