It feels safe to say everyone grew up alongside legends.
Legends that became the basis for night terrors, fear
of the dark, and stories you could pass to others in long nights of horror
stories told while holding flashlights. Of course, they grew stronger with
time. Sometimes they’re still part of an intimate catalog of shameful things
that scare you.
Imagine if you had the capacity to tell a story around
that certain entity or event. If you had an open menu for composing a story out
of folklore and legends. I think everyone would do a passionate job. Also a
respectful one.
In The Tokoloshe: The Calling there’s
an intention to build a story. Maybe release notes help, but the regular viewer
isn’t aware of what’s happening behind a mediocre movie. They just see the
result. And in the case of The Tokoloshe: The Calling, the result
is a messy script that can’t hold the story together. If you see the film,
please tell me the relation between the opening note and the movie itself.
The story is centered around a writer who moves to an
abandoned hotel in order to finish his latest job. His wife and adopted
daughter accompany him, and instantly they begin sensing something is not right
with the place. More so, the little girl who feels she has a link with this
place through her unknown bloodline.
It’s a film told in flashback as the girl has grown up
and she’s in therapy with someone who encourages her to explore that tragic
past. This side of the story is poorly depicted as the performers are terrible
and their characters have no posture in the creepy story about demons and
ghosts in the hotel. The link between both “worlds” is there, but it’s simply
not engaging. Or understandable.
You would have to dig more if you wanted to know more
about what’s actually going on in The Tokoloshe: The Calling. The
film’s a collection of scenes that are aiming for a jump scare and end up being
plain boring and ineffective. The only thing that you will obtain with the film
is an unnerving feeling with a very creepy doll that works greatly in the few
scenes it’s in. Wow.
Indie horror films aren’t bad by default. There are
some that are very good without being flamboyant and eccentric. You don’t have
to have great special effects to tell a creepy story. Sound helps but a good
sound design does not come from budget. You just need to make sense of your
story and follow the guidelines of “breadcrumbs”, buildups, misdirections, etc.
Perhaps, I’m committing a sin by saying this but The
Tokoloshe: The Calling could have been a formula-based horror film and
the results would have been better. Sometimes it’s better to be simple and stay
in a comfort zone. Experiments are sometimes good but risky. And risky doesn’t
have anything to do with the terrible adaptation that is The Tokoloshe:
The Calling, a film that makes us afraid of telling the stories we grew up
in
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