The Tokoloshe (Review)
The Tokoloshe Provides Interesting Twists on Horror Themes.
Horror fans know that some of the best movies these days come from overseas, which is why I was more than a little excited to sit down and watch the African film The Tokoloshe. I honestly haven’t seen that many African movies (which is totally on me) and I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, The Tokoloshe turned out to be an extremely well-crafted and well-executed film, particularly when it comes to its cinematography and the performance of its lead actress, Petronella Tshuma. It also tackles a serious sociological issue, though it gets a little heavy-handed at times. All in all, The Tokoloshe is a solid horror film that stumbles a bit but manages to be just creepy enough to be worth a watch.
The Tokoloshe follows a young woman named Busi (Tshuma) who comes to the city in hopes of making a living and earning enough to bring her younger sister from her small village to live with her. The only job she can find is at a creepy old hospital run by a predatory coordinator, Ruatomin (Dawid Minnaar), who has his eye on her. As the tale unfolds she discovers a girl in one of the wards named Gracie (Kwande Nkosi) being tormented by a supernatural force. Busi puts everything on the line to help Gracie, but the force tormenting her refuses to simply let them go.
On the surface, The Tokoloshe seems like your typical supernatural horror film. An evil entity believed to torment and devour children turns out to be very real and the protagonist has to find some way to escape. It’s a tried and true method that’s spawned countless movies over the ages as folklore is given the big-screen treatment. The Tokoloshe goes deeper than that as it uses the terrifying force as a metaphor for the sexual abuse so many young women experience to this day in the country (South Africa). Busi’s character is pursued by Ruatomin, who believes he has a right to her since he gave her the job. He isn’t the only one though, as her landlord offers to trade sex for rent. To make things even worse, she has dark secrets from her past that she’s trying to run away from. The fact that the Tokoloshe is after a young Gracie, makes him the perfect metaphor for the kind of abuse that is front and center in the film. It’s definitely an important issue and I feel like the film found a powerful way to bring this issue to light, but at times it seems like The Tokoloshe is trying too hard to make sure the audience can make the connection.
Petronella Tshuma proves to be the perfect choice for the role of Busi. The character is obviously incredibly timid due to her past experiences and Tshuma gives a performance that feels genuine. She immediately comes across as a woman who is hyper vigilant, torn between trying to keep herself safe and doing whatever it takes to be able to make enough money to move her sister to the city with her. Her character obviously sees a lot of her sister in young Gracie and makes it impossible for her to ignore her plight. Together Tshuma and Nkosi share a great deal of chemistry making their bond a crucial element to the tension that the film tries to build. It’s important to also note that The Tokoloshe is a bilingual film with characters speaking both English and Zulu. I bring this up because Robert Rodriguez proved with his film El Mariachi that even the worst dialogue and performances are 10x better when it’s subtitled. That isn’t to say that Tshuma or any of the actors are bad, but the use of the traditional language makes it much easier to swallow even the most cliched horror tropes used in the film.
I was pleasantly surprised at how well executed The Tokoloshe was. Director Jerome Pikwane devotes a great deal of energy when it comes to the aesthetic of the film. It’s filled with dark, dingy basements, gritty apartment buildings, and an abundance of fascinating African artifacts. He also finds plenty of ways to save on his budget by keeping the evil spirit just off-screen for almost the entirety of the film. This is a similar trick to what Ridley Scott did in the original Alien and Steven Spielberg did in Jaws, and even now it’s incredibly effective. Instead, he has objects suddenly move or fly across the room, or simply fills his scenes with creepy whispering (all of it in Zulu). It creates an ominous presence and raises the tension right up until the very end. However, when the monster is finally revealed, I wasn’t a huge fan of it. Then again, reality never lives up to what our minds are able to fabricate.
The biggest issue I had with The Tokoloshe was that it seemed to end abruptly. The final showdown with the evil entity is a bit disappointing, but everything up to that point really sucked me in, especially with the lore it created around the tormenting spirit. The cast is rock solid and the performances throughout it creates valuable empathy for the characters. I also really enjoyed how the cinematography underlines how dark the story is without sacrificing visuals or clarity. It’s a film that emphasizes the universal elements of horror from around the world but still shows how different cultures vary in the stories they tell. All in all, The Tokoloshe is an intriguing film that I would definitely recommend to fans of supernatural horror.
