‘City slickers wander into a backwards, rural community that is,surprise!actually a cult committing tremendous and vile acts’ has to be a classic horror narrative at this point.Add in witches and cannibalism, and you’ve got the recipe for a gnarly folk horror.Abdelhamid Bouchnak’s debut feature film,Dachra, was made for essentially nothing, yet it manages to both genuinely unnerve and frighten. Rather than choose between the bombastic gruesomeness of traditional horror fare and the subtle creepiness of elevated horror,Dachrablends the two extremes on either end of the horror spectrum. A hodgepodge of titans likeDeliverance,The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and evenThe Blair Witch Project,Dachrawill at times feel familiar to seasoned fans of the genre, while also surprising and subverting through tonal choices and impeccable atmosphere.
Slow Burn Tension is an Art in ‘Dachra’
Folk horror often dedicates its first hour to a carefully paced, haunting slow burn. This allows the back half of the movie toexplode into a phantasmagoria of nightmares.Dachra’s structureis no different. Following journalism students Yasmine (Yasmine Dimassi), Walid (Aziz Jbali), and Bilel (Bilel Slatnia) as they hunt down a lead for their final project, the trio stumbles headfirst into a cultfull of cannibal witches. Thinking a patient ata local mental facility, Mongia (Hela Ayed), might be flashy enough to be the subject that earns them full marks on their assignment, they ignore the major red flags and launch their investigation. Twenty years back, Mongia was found on the side of the road with her throat slit, and since entering the hospital, has been accused of witchcraft and violently attacking the nurses. The trio wants to know what happened that night, but the answers may cost them their lives.
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Dachrauses its main trio’s investigation as apressure cooker of drama. At the heart of all this tension is Mongia. Mongia serves a dual purpose, as both a character and a plot device. Her backstory is surreal and enticing to the trio and the audience. As Yasmine, Walid, and Bilel investigate, the audience is biting their nails, waiting for any more information. Spliced throughout the first half of this borderline crime thriller are quick scenes of the cult. Opening the film is the cult sacrificing a young boy at an altar. While Yasmine, Walid, and Bilel don’t know about the cult or their movements, the audience does, ratcheting up the tension even more. The audience, being privy to more clues than the trio, involves them in this gnarly research, building and maintaining interest as the plot develops.
‘Dachra’ Is the Best of Both Worlds
With the influx of A24’s brand of elevated horror that swept through the mid-2010s,genre-stapleelements like jump scaresandgore got scrubbedfrom art-house-leaning films.Dachracloses that gap.Loud noises, sudden movements, and bursts of blood pop againstDachra’s moody visuals and careful sound design. Yasmine’s dream sequences are perhaps the best example of how the film balances these two extremes. Arguable main character, Yasmine, is plagued by nightmares. Bouchnak captures the hazy logic of dreams with the genuine terror of nightmares by meshing together the two aforementioned styles of horror. As Yasmine wakes from one nightmare into another, jump scares punctuate and break up the surreal spookiness, signaling a new dream has begun. As the film progresses, this blending becomes even more seamless.
The folk horror elements ofDachraare the most brutal aspects of the film. Laced throughout Yasmine, Walid, and Bilel’s tense, drama-filled investigation are genuinely frightening scenes of the cult. The movie opens with a young boy getting his throat slit, yetDachrais restrained in how much gore it is willing to show.The worst ofthe horror is implied, creating a mounting sense of doom. All the audience sees of the boy’s sacrifice, for example, is the rush of blood staining a rock. Frequently, cult members are seen scrubbing blood off surfaces, implying more horror has occurred.
It’s criminal how few people have heard about, let alone seen,Dachra. Made on a tiny budget and with mostly unknown actors, the film is astoundingly good. With a healthy dose of jump scares and flesh-eating for hardcore horror fans, and a genuinely impressive atmosphere for art-house lovers, there’s nothing not to like aboutDachra.Isolated forests, cannibals, and witches, oh my! What doesn’tDachrahave?
