Movie Review: 'Dachra' Tunisia's First Horror Movie

Dachra is said to be Tunisia’s first horror movie. If that’s indeed true then they’ve learned a lot from the horror traditions of America. The film is about three journalism students who are chasing an exclusive story in order to get a good grade in their class. They are tasked with doing an original, exclusive, investigative news story and one of the three happens to have an idea that involves a legendary mental patient and the strange village near where the patient was found having survived having her throat cut and other such horrors.

Dachra stars Yassmine as Dimassi as Yassmine, a journalism student dealing with terrifying nightmares. Yassmine is plagued by the repeated appearance of a terrifying creature dressed head to toe in black with a murderous air about her. Only Yassmine’s grandfather, Bechir (Bahri Rahali), is aware of the severity of these night terrors. He also may know more about the woman in black than he lets on.

Yassmine is a journalism student and her newest assignment is to investigate an exclusive story, one that hasn’t been widely published before. Yassmine’s partners, a pair of bickering male friends, Walid (Aziz Jebali) and Bilel (Bilel Slatnia), struggle to come up with an idea. Then, Bilel has a breakthrough. He recalls the story of a mental patient who some have claimed is a dangerous witch. The woman was found on the side of a road in a rural area with her throat cut and survived but after being rescued she became feral and dangerous.

Bilel just happens to have a friend who works at the mental hospital where the mysterious, unnamed, ‘witch’ is being held. With no other good ideas presenting themselves, Yassmine and Walid agree and the three hit the road the following day. Their story is nearly killed within moments of arriving at the hospital. An interview with the hospital administrator becomes antagonistic when the subject of Mongia (Hela Ayed), the supposed witch, is raised.

The doctor throws them out but Bilel’s friend advises them to return after dark with a bribe for the guards. She can get them into the hospital to meet Mongia and get her strange presence on camera. The interview doesn’t go well. Mongia ends up attacking Yassmine, scratching her on the arm, before attacking and apparently murdering one of her nurses as our protagonists beat a hasty retreat into the night.

Despite the traumatic experience at the hospital, something about Mongia’s story drives Yassmine to keep searching. Soon, Yassmine discovers Dachra, a village said to be walking distance from where Mongia was found near death 20 years ago. With Walid and Bilel, Yassmine will travel to Dachra and find out if anyone remembers this mysterious woman and what happened to drive her mad.

Upon arriving in Dachra the vibe is bad. The women in the village are forbidden from speaking to outsiders and the only man in town, an ingratiating and overbearingly friendly young man, begs them to stay the night and share a meal. Nothing about this feels right to our trio. The meat is disturbingly gamey and unfamiliar, prepared in a haphazard fashion. The company is weird as all of the women in the village stare at the floor in apparent fear of looking at the outsiders. Then there is a strange little girl in red with blood on her lips and madness in her eyes.

All of what I have described is familiar from several dozen American horror movies, most notably The Blair Witch Project. You can easily draw out the inspiration for Dachra from The Blair Witch Project, even as Dachra is not a found footage movie. Both films are about mysterious enclaves, handheld cameras, and tales of witches with unending supernatural terror at their disposal.

That said, the familiar nature of Dachra is not a bad thing. The familiarity is a solid set up for a film that uses shocking jump scares as or more effectively than most modern American horror movies. Dachra is skillfully and terrifyingly directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak. The skill on display can be seen from the first moments of Dachra, a series of dark and gritty, silent yet seemingly mundane scenes that build to a terrifying and bloody conclusion. The opening scenes set the stakes for the rest of Dachra and the rest of the movie carries the tension and terror forward.

Dachra is gory and relentless, especially at the end as the film races to it’s gruesome finish. I won’t spoil anything for you. I will only say that Dachra has some striking terrors to unleash on you if you are patient with it. The film takes a little bit to get where it is going but the final act rewards horror fans with a super fast pace and a series of gut wrenching horrors. These scenes have a familiarity to them but a more daring feel in the hands of filmmakers who aren’t as beholden to Ratings and box office as so many American features are.

Dachra opens in limited theatrical and On-Demand Rental release on July 9th, 2021 from Dekanalog.