Welcome to the apocalypse, straight from Uganda! Horror cinema in Nigeria and Uganda has achieved minor urban legend status for the ludicrousness of the cinema they produce. From mindbending tales like End of the Wicked to epic serials like the four-part 666: Beware the End Time is At Hand, shocking camcorder effects, inexplicable dialogue, and incomprehensible editing are the names of the game. Unfortunately, many of these films are used by fundamentalist Christian groups to forward harmful and oppressive agendas--a context which can't be easily separated from the films on display. But when viewed independently of the real world, they are works of art that represent glimpses into a world as surreal as the low-budget cinema of Turkey or Indonesia. The types of movies this blog concerns itself with can be found all over the world, and each country does it different. We live in a cultural rainbow of beautiful trash and I am only just discovering the tip of the iceberg for African talent...and gorgeous madness.
A taxi driver takes his fare through the dusty Ugandan roads. He attempts to strike up a conversation, only to learn that his passenger is in fact a skeleton. He screams and the editing leads us to believe that the skeleton is screaming back. He flees only to be confronted by zombies. Shots of the zombies consist of accelerated slideshows, ala most of Andreas Schnaas' Violent Shit. The driver returns to the taxi, only for the skeleton to vomit snakes on him, leading to his demise. We go into the (second) opening credits sequence, wherein music that sounds like it would fit in the 1990 Captain America movie plays. It's okay, though, because the movie's soundtrack is also cobbled together with music from Godzilla, Dawn of the Dead, and Satan War (probably a library cue, but whatever).
In essence, the titular Witchdoctor of the Living Dead (spelled "Livingdead" on the main title card) is terrorizing a town full of characters who are probably named somewhere. A woman pukes snakes until she dies, a priest holds a crucifix up to the camera for ten minutes, and lines are read with the emotion and pacing of Microsoft Sam. All of this makes the movie incredibly hard to follow, and that is why I love it. What I don't love is a goat being bloodily killed in real life on camera. It's entirely unnecessary and somehow manages to become even more grueling than the animal cruelty shit from Cannibal Ferox. However, that's basically the only dip in the road. This movie may bore a lot of people, but not too many, really. I really doubt you could get goofier zombies, and I'm counting the ones from Zombie Lake--it is genuinely entertaining merely on an aesthetic level for the zombies alone.
There are two questions I kept asking while watching this. One, "What the fuck?"; and two, "Are you fucking kidding me?" However, both were said endearingly. There is almost no plot in this movie. Character development is nonexistent, and never established to begin with. As such, it can only be really be described as hallucinogenic; a psychedelic sea of cackling zombie faces, slow-mo shots, and an ending that would be disappointing if the events of it were portrayed with regards to real-life ammunition limitations. And people scream quite a lot, though the screams sound less like those of pain or fear, and more like anger. I love hearing those screams in movies, for how out of place they are, and I've found out through making my own movies that it's really the only way to do any sort of genuine scream while acting (assuming you're like me--I am an actor in the same way that cream of mushroom soup is an exotic and exciting dish). Everyone sounds pissed off over the fact that a zombie is eating their guts. I suppose that's kind of awesome. I mean, if I get killed by black magic, I want the sorcerer in question to know that as scary and painful as my death is, I'm still damn pissed off that my death means I will never taste honey-sriracha-crust mushroom pizza again.
To put it another way: Witchdoctor of the Living Dead has basically everything I could ever want in a horror film. The only other time I've felt such a thing so deeply was in Evil Dead, particularly in the wake of the scene where the Deadite grabs Ash's ankle while screaming "Join us! Join us!" Ghouls screaming "Join us!" has always made me laugh myself to tears.
I like to think that Witchdoctor could one day give someone else those same tears. Do yourself a favor and track it (just fast-forward through the animal violence). Then you will finally find out for yourself what the WARNING is. Or rather, why they didn't have time enough to tell you what that WARNING was. Because it is a WARNING that this movie is full of all kinds of batshit glory.
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