” claim this thriller is “inspired by true events,” and that “in North Africa hundreds of children are victims of acts of witchcraft.” Nonetheless, one might be forgiven for assuming this purported first-ever Tunisian foray into horror cinema is drawn less from local crimes or superstitions than from the familiar genre tropes of “The Blair Witch Project,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and umpteen other long-standing fan favorites.
Yassmine , Walid and Belil are university journalism students tasked with completing a “filmed investigative report” on any subject, so long as it has “exclusivity.” It’s cameraman Bilel’s idea that they use an inside contact of his to interview a madwoman who’s been confined to an asylum for 20 years, since she was found “naked and mutilated” in a remote rural area.The woman known as Mongia is said to be a witch, and a danger to institutional staff.
More suggestive than violently explicit, “Dachra” is the kind of movie that nonetheless feels vividly icky because there are a lot of not-quite-identifiable animal parts lying about, dripping red liquid. At first it seems the film will overdo the handheld camerawork à la found-footage horrors , as well as de rigueur “Oops, it’s only a dream” false scares.