Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Antonio Negret
Starring: Sara Canning, Daniel Gillies, Jett Klyne, Alejandro Fajardo, Humberto
Morales
Someone once said that when Britain visits Africa, Africa gets a lecture
but when China visits Africa, Africa gets new roads. Of course, the
Chinese aren't building roads in Africa out of simple benevolence, but if
you badly need a road you're probably not going to question the motives
behind those who are laying the tarmac. The American Catholic missionaries
of director Antonio Negret's feature debut Shaman aren't building roads but they are offering food to the
poverty-stricken indigenous residents of a village in rural Ecuador. While
many of the locals have taken the soup, converting to Catholicism and
learning to speak English, some steadfastly hold on to their own
traditions and beliefs. This will lead to a clash between two belief
systems as they battle for the soul of a young boy.
That young boy is Elliott (Jett Klyne), the 12 year-old son of
missionaries Candice (Sara Canning) and Joel (Daniel Gillies). On the day before he's due to make his confirmation, Elliott ignores
the warnings of the local kids and wanders into a forbidden cave. The next
morning he is found in the care of the local shaman (Lisandro Morales), who warns Candice that her son is stricken with something that only
his powers can tackle. Dismissing the shaman's words as mumbo jumbo,
Candice takes the boy home, but it soon becomes clear that something
disturbing has indeed happened to Elliott.
Shaman is most engaging when it's exploring the cultural and theological
clash between the indigenous religion and that of the American
interlopers. Candice believes the shaman is responsible for making her son
ill, while Joel doesn't believe he has such powers. The local Catholic
priest, Father Meyer (Alejandro Fajardo), finds himself caught in
the middle, not wanting to upset either the locals or the Americans who
are now keeping him in a job. The stress of this balancing act has
resulted in him becoming a functioning alcoholic, constantly sipping form
the bottles he hides around his vestry.
Father Meyer is the film's most interesting character, implicit in
centuries of colonialism and now finding himself taking orders from new
colonisers. It's something of a missed opportunity that the film doesn't
make him the central focus. While horror regular Canning is excellent as
always, Candice is the sort of losing-her-wits horror mom that we've seen
all too often.
At a certain point the novelty factor of the Ecuadorian setting wears
off as Shaman becomes yet another standard exorcism movie, albeit one with an
indigenous rite rather than the customary Catholic performance. All of
these movies have the same final act, the only difference here is that
instead of a priest flinging holy water around we have a shaman
squeezing the life out of a cute little capybara, which won't endear the
film to animal lovers. Shaman raises interesting ideas about religion and colonialism, but it's
all ultimately rendered as window dressing for a horror movie that
skirts around its more complex ideas and finally settles for schlock and
jump scares.
Shaman is on UK/ROI VOD from
February 16th.