Film Review - Kandisha (2021)

During the early 2000s right through to the early 2010s, cinema was littered with transgressive and highly controversial films created by predominately by French filmmakers.

Though the movement covered a broad range of subgenres, its core stylistic values and subject matter explicitly included sexual debauchery, gratuitous, excessive violence and mass hysteria. Coined by contemporary art critic James Quandt, this movement was named New French Extremity.

Key contributors of the unrestrained cinematic craze include Gaspar Noé, Alexandre Aja and Pascal Laugier. Standout films include Claire Denis‘ Trouble Every Day, Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi’s Baise-moi, Laugier‘s Martyrs and of course, Noé‘s heinous Irréversible.

Also noteworthy among this pictorial vogue that shook audiences around the world is Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury and their directorial debut, Inside (À l’intérieur).

Inside concerned the home invasion of a pregnant young woman who is physically and psychologically tortured by her assailant (Béatrice Dalle). The film was notorious for its brutal, uncompromising violence and nasty, callous tone.

Two positively-received original films and one rather questionable Texas Chain Saw prequel later (of which they weren’t on writing duties), the gruesome twosome of New French Extremity are back!

Based on the real life Moroccan folk legend, Kandisha tells the tale of three Parisian neighbourhood teens who mistakenly summon the powerful and vengeful demon – who seeks to brutally murder all the men in and surrounding their lives.

Set in against the scene of modern-day Paris, Kandisha immediately comes at you with its blustering youthful stride and often juvenile quips before the narrative can blossom into its supernatural/folk horror avenue. Its base layer of immature, adolescent humour through its opening establishing dialogue via the films three angsty key characters is the product of Millennials and Gen Z’ers. In a manner, it feels comparative to the chronicle of the three friends of Mathieu Kassovitz‘s La Haine. Right down to the three female friends sneaking off into the night behind their parents back to pursue their troublemaking graffiti. Only the three friends of Kandisha lack any genuine engrossment for its audiences.

Keeping up with its unashamedly contemporary storytelling, in between scenes a well-produced, traditional horror film score is replaced with obnoxious, stereotypical Post Malone-esque hip-hop and R&B music. Even as somebody who is relatively young and “in line with the times” and current music trends, the soundtrack choice is repugnant. It feels ham-fistedly misplaced to disrespectfully remind its audience you’re watching a film about three rebellious teenage women as if you’d immediately forgotten. Again, not quite as sincere or as innovative as DJ Cut Killer’s iconic mix in La Haine.

After a overly dramatized but highly significant plot device of which I won’t spoil, Bustillo and Maury‘s film shifts from “hood drama” to its true supernatural and folklore horror foundations.

ing the story of Aicha Kandicha, unknowingly for her but predictably for the audience, Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse) summons the murderous, unforgiving entity into existence once more. And woefully, the malevolent Aicha Kandicha is conjured in the most clichéd way possible. There’s talk of Ouija boards, saying “Kandisha” three times into a mirror as if she’s Candyman or Bloody Mary and the eventual use of pentagrams, obviously. All things occult, making oblivious jokes and sarcasm as if they aren’t tempting fate. Truly dull and tired tropes of supernatural horror flicks that are long overdue a revitalisation.

The character development of Amélie and her two best friends, Bintou (Suzy Bemba) and Morjana (Samarcande Saadi) is swift and unexciting. Their backstories are very briefly touched upon or divulged into, leaving a lot of room left to be desired. It’s made glaringly obvious all three of these young women are destined for jeopardy, but there’s little or next to room to really care if that is the case. They’re generally uninvestable.

On the whole, the narrative of Kandisha is quite predictable from the moment the jinn manifests itself and is brought into the fold. What’s most predictable and quickly becomes tiresome is its artificial and ingenuine feminist underpinnings. Though its intentions mean well, its disproportionate and edgy anti-men undertones feel hollow and completely insincere. The over-the-top female badassery, stimulated anti-establishment and mandatory “all the men suck in the movie” are insufficient in having authentic conviction of equality. The coolest and most compelling “feminist” set piece is the reworked lore of Kandicha and how she is a slayer on warpath of revenge against all men for multiple centuries, bound to any woman who requires her purging aid.

Praise can somewhat additionally can go to Bustillo and Maury‘s attention to detail when it comes to the on-screen kills. Toon Sintobin‘s special effects alongside Oriane De Neve‘s makeup, work hand in hand in creating a glimmer of hope for the film having genuine captivating horror sequences that harken back to the much well-balanced earlier work of the writing-directing duo, as well as the everlastingly impressively jaw-dropping and fearful New French Extremity tenacity of yesteryear. The death scenes prior to the over-the-top gore-filled kills from Kandicha in the last leg of Kandisha are anticlimactic and second-rate. They lack the punch you got from Inside, or a film like Marytrs or High Tension – leaving you stricken with grief and terror.

Principally, Kandisha is let down by its weak script, lacklustre storytelling as well as not having a clear and concise essence of original work. It feels like a failed attempt at rejuvenating a product that has abundant sentimental value. The acting is convincing enough across the board. Everyone plays their part exceptionally well with what they are given, particularly Mathilde Lamusse as the rebellious Amélie who is often fierce, but also at times very human in her emotional vulnerability.

All things considered, Bustillo and Maury‘s unbalanced but well-intentioned film proves that “New French Extremity” was a product of its time. Its a cinematic fad that is likely never to be fully recaptured nor fully reinstated into the limelight. Its a label that sadly the duo will forever be synonymous with despite their best efforts to maybe breakaway from it to create an original horror tale, or to refurbish it.