[star rating=”3″] RAGE. Directed by Jaco Bouwer with Nicole Fortuin, Jane de Wet, Carel Nel, Sihle Mnqwazana, Shalima Mkongi, David Viviers and Tristan de Beer. Showmax.
KAREN RUTTER reviews
Rage is touted as South Africa’s first original horror movie on Showmax, and it comes with a pretty good pedigree – director Jaco Bouwer is a heavyweight director both on screen and on stage, and the mostly young cast have some quality productions on their CVs. The idea, too, is good – the ideal setting for a teen horror scene, in fact.
Six friends are on a post-matric holiday at the coast, revelling in the by-now traditional way that privileged end-of-schoolers do, in a celebration synonymous with the title of the film – drinkin’, dancin’, druggin’ and all that good stuff. Tamsyn, Roxy, Kyle, Sihle, Albert and Neo are a rainbow-hued sextet made up of the usual teen roles – the jock, the gay, the nerd etc. They’re staying in a family vacation home in some beach town (not sure where, which is a bit weird – sometimes it looks like Bloubergstrand, sometimes the Eastern Cape). They’re an irritating group, to be honest – which is great, because you want them to die, and this is a horror film, so they will.
Going to end badly
On a visit to the store they meet a creepy old woman, whose equally creepy son later joins them on the beach. They all take MDMA and start seeing weird fertility rituals and stuff. Cut a long story short, the creepy woman and her son are part of a cult, and not in a good way. It’s going to end badly for the friends and, in the time-honoured tradition of horror films, they get picked off one by one.
The film is attractively framed, with moody atmospheric sequences and a couple of eye-watering gory scenes (loved the drill in the head. Oops, spoiler). And, as mentioned, the premise is cool. As are the cast. And one cannot fault Bouwer’s directorial hand.
But to be honest, it wasn’t all that scary. The film pays homage to a number of titles – I thought of Hereditary, and bits of Blair Witch – all of which are genuinely terrifying. But this didn’t get my adrenalin pumping at all.
To be honest, it could be because I was watching this at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, and nothing can actually match up to the real-life fear we are all mostly feeling. So fair play to Rage, it’s not a bad movie. And in fact, may be just the thing to get your mind off more serious matters.
What: Rage
Where: Showmax
WS
