By Tanitia Burks

The Achoura Festival is a night of children in Morocco. The film Achoura begins with such a celebration that takes place decades prior to the main events of the film. The festival of Achoura is only mentioned once more in the movie and although the tie in is briefly explained, the film may as well have been given a different title as the festival does not seem to have any major significance to the present-day events of the story.

Achoura switches to present day and goes on to follow the story of three friends Ali, Nadia and Stephen. The film has a series of flashbacks that tell the story of when they were kids. These flashbacks reveal that they had another friend, Samir, who was abducted about 20 years prior. With revelation after revelation, we discover that there is a demon called the Bougatate that feeds on children. The film follows the group of friends as they escape from and try to contain this demon.

While this film was gritty and garnered a lot of suspense, it left me with so many questions. The monster of this movie, the Bougatate, was a boogeyman-type creature. I really felt that this film could have benefitted from more time in order to explore the lore about this demon and explain how it is controlled or destroyed. The film inserts a brief 20 second section where the friends read about the demon in an old book. This 20 second clip only serves to reveal what we, the audience, already know which is that the Bougatate feeds on children. The film felt very rushed and featured scenes that moved the plot along without any exposition explaining how and why different things happened. While the film clearly intended to be a thriller, the work of realizing the Bougatate by getting the audience to understand how it works and operates was not done. The monster never feels like something that could be real and therefore loses its scare factor. I feel like if the film had more time to explore the lore around the demon, it could have been more impactful as a fear inducing entity.

When the Bougatate is first revealed, it has a creepy mask-like face with an all-black body and long claws. Although the design of the demon was good, there were times that the CGI was off. I felt like this could have been ignored if the demon felt more realized. The lack-luster CGI only added to this monster feeling less real and therefore, less frightening. Another note on the editing of this film is that the score was often times heavy-handed. I often found myself thinking “Alright we get it” as the score kept swelling dramatically in seemingly every scene. The film ends on a surprising twist that, again, could have been more effective if additional time was spent building the threat and lore around the Bougatate.

Overall, I would say that the film had a very interesting premise and it hooked me at the start but failed to deliver in terms of getting me to buy-into the story and the threat of the Bougatate.

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Cinepocalypse Film Fest 2019 - “ACHOURA” Review

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