![]() Unfolds, the now all-white platoon shows themselves to be ignorant of tribal Wants its apartheid-era audience to reconsider the depictions of their ownīlack community as controlled labour or subservient Uncle Toms. Matthew Hughey) ‘magic negro’ character there solely to assist the white men Sole black member of the platoon is shot down early in The Stick for refusing to kill a witch doctor – eliminating what, at first, seems like a (to quote Unlike Peele – understands all-too-well the language of race in cinema. Their mission never even has a concise purpose. The South African forces are never shown in a sympathetic The Indochina conflict was a tragedy for the United States, rather than theĮxact opposite. Young male voice to see the war through (somewhat offensively suggesting that ![]() Whereas the American Vietnam films always offer an “innocent” ![]() ), where the continent is laced with fear and barbarism. Meanwhile, its representation of hamlets and witch doctors in ruralĪngola might be seen to fall into the “dangerous or exotic territory” of Generically, then, The Stick owes its identity to theĮn-vogue Vietnam War films that were emerging from Hollywood, most famously Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986), Hamburger Hill (John Irvin, 1987) and Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick,ġ987). A solemn narration tells us, ‘I remember my father once saying Referenced as the enemy), attesting to the controversial war that Pretoria wasĮngaged with. South African army-men are shown traipsing the bush of what is supposed to beĪngola (although the country is never mentioned, “Cubans” are occasionally Imagined and enforced by societies, rather than individuals. The real enemy to progression comes from within, and that skin colour is a barrier Turbulent years of apartheid but also has a remarkably dystopian commentaryĪbout how the state is doomed to failure. ![]() Yet, it is possible to maintain that, just as with Peele’s Us, a pulpy exterior need not be a barrier to a provocative thematic. A recent, excellent study by Litheko Modisane, South Africa’s Renegade Reels: The Making and Public Lives of Black-Centered Films (2012, Palgrave-MacMillan) looks at the social drama Mapantsula (Oliver Schmitz, 1988) rather than The Stick, when discussing the twilight cinema of apartheid – possibly because the latter, as a horror film, wears its generic identity over its social-political one. ![]() The Stick (1988), directed by Darrell RoodtĪs this month brings us the 25 th anniversary of democratic elections in South Africa, and given my current in-the-works book for Edinburgh University Press ( Images of Apartheid: Filmmaking on the Fringe in the Old South Africa) it is interesting to look back at this troubled period and see that, far from an ostracised state in seclusion, the country actually had a thriving film industry that existed in at least some sort of dialogue with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Roodt – whose recent credits include the slightly-less-lofty sequel Lake Placid: Legacy (2018) – rarely has his name raised in discussions of any so-called ‘highbrow’ horror. The strangest thing about Us, however, is that it made me think about a little-known film from horror’s past – The Stick, shot and produced in South Africa, released in 1988 and directed by Darrell Roodt. Us even concludes by asking if true horror comes from the inside and, in a possible nod to Swimming with Sharks (George Huang, 1994) ponders upon just how far one might go in order to gain a better chance in life – pointing to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. Indeed, a recent IndieWire article even asked, ‘Is “elevated horror” a real thing, or is it just a reductive way of forcing a high/low hierarchy onto a genre that has always struggled to be taken seriously?’ Certainly, as with his Oscar winning Get Out, itself indebted to the work of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966), Peele raises worthwhile questions about race and class identity in Us and provides no easy answers. Last year’s superior possession shocker Hereditary (from director Ari Aster) and the recent release of Jordan Peele’s Us has resulted in a new term, ‘elevated horror’, being introduced into the critical lexicon, much to the chagrin of many fright-fans. ![]()
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