French Horror Film Kandisha Feels Like Candyman’s Little Sister

It’s summer time in Paris, and three besties—Morjana (Samarcande Saadi), Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse), and Bintou (Suzy Bemba)—are lazing via the times, partying with buddies, and dealing on their graffiti murals inside an empty house constructing that’s scheduled for demolition. Life isn’t good, however it’s not horrible, one thing that modifications swiftly when the kids invite a malevolent spirit into their midst.

Specifically, it’s Amélie who summons Aicha Kandisha after studying about her from Morjana; she’s “a famous legend in Morocco,” “a beautiful woman who destroys men.” After a persistent ex-boyfriend bodily assaults her, an anguished Amélie works out her frustration by scrawling a bloody pentagram and calling out to what she thinks is only a determine from a folktale—one thing Morjana’s brother dismisses as “old-country bullshit.” Turns out, after all, that Aicha Kandisha is totally actual and decidedly lethal; as soon as conjured, she materializes earlier than Amélie’s tormentor and chases him into site visitors. The women are shaken, however regardless of Amélie’s nagging sense of dread, the timing of her ex’s loss of life feels like a coincidence…till others of their shared orbit—all males, consistent with Aicha Kandisha’s modus operandi—begin dying horrible deaths. Slasher-movie fashion suspense builds as you begin to discover how many males encompass the three younger girls—fathers who’re each sort and not-so-kind, buddies, brothers older and youthful, the toddler son born to a few of their social circle because the film progresses—and marvel who’ll be picked off subsequent.

Writer-directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s best-known earlier movie might be Inside—one other female-centric horror movie, though in a wholly totally different manner (it’s a few girl who turns into fixated on stealing a pregnant girl’s child). Kandisha takes sure recognizable cues from Candyman: key scenes unfold in a run-down house tower, and it contains a supernatural villain with a) a tragic backstory, b) a thirst for brutal revenge, and c) the flexibility to be summoned by anybody who repeats their identify time and again. But the place Candyman added depth to its bloody story with themes investigating America’s racist previous and current, Kandisha doesn’t actually dig into something past “Oh my god, our loved ones are dying and it’s all my fault.” And although its plot is pretty simple, it doesn’t totally maintain collectively; the final act, which needs to be its scariest crescendo, provides loads of gore (the film is unquestionably not quick on that) however in any other case proceeds precisely as you’d count on.

However, that’s to not say it’s best to cross Kandisha off your watchlist. Its setting—a working-class, not notably glamorous aspect of Paris that’s not normally delivered to the forefront—is each distinctive and vivid, and its characters aren’t the kind of teenagers that normally populate horror films. They really feel like actual individuals residing realistically messy lives (speaking shit, smoking weed, arguing with their mother and father, goofing off, making artwork) and the central friendship has a lived-in high quality that makes you perceive why Bintou and Morjana would willingly contain themselves in Amélie’s spooky nightmare. (The indisputable fact that the three women playfully refer to one another as “Black girl,” “Arab,” and “the white one” suggests they’re effectively conscious of the cultural variations between them and aren’t bothered by them in any respect. Why ought to they be?) There’s additionally an interesting subplot that emerges when the women—who’ve realized the web will not be a helpful useful resource for demon-related issues—handle to trace down an exorcist imam who was banished from his mosque for practising witchcraft. His display time is transient, however as impactful as you’d need any character answering to that exact description to be.

Kandisha premieres July 22 on Shudder.

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