Saloum is a 2021 Senegalese horror-thriller film directed by Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot and produced by Pamela Diop.[3] The film stars Yann Gael, Mentor Ba and Roger Sallah in the lead roles with Evelyne Ily Juhen, Bruno Henry, and Marielle Salmier in supporting roles.[4] The film revolves around Bangui's Hyenas, an elite trio of mercenaries that extract a drug dealer and his bricks of gold amidst Guinea-Bissau's coup d'état of 2003.[5][6]
Saloum | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical film poster | |
Directed by | Jean Luc Herbulot |
Written by | Jean Luc Herbulot Pamela Diop |
Produced by | Pamela Diop |
Starring | Yann Gael |
Cinematography | Gregory Corandi |
Edited by | Nicolas Desmaison Alasdair McCulloch Sébastien Prangère |
Music by | Reksider |
Production companies | Lacmé Rumble Fish Productions Tableland Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 84 minutes |
Countries | Senegal France |
Languages | French Wolof |
Box office | $5,078[1][2] |
The film had its international premiere in the Midnight Madness section at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival on 30 September 2021.[7] The film received critical acclaim and was screened worldwide[8][9] and began streaming internationally on Shudder in September 2022.[10]
The film was met with positive reviews. Herbulot won the Award for the best director in the Next Wave section at the Fantastic Fest,[11] and the film won the Audience Award for most popular film in the Altered States program at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival.[12]
Mercenary group Bangui's Hyenas are tasked with extracting a Mexican drug lord from Guinea-Bissau amid the 2003 coup d'état and taking him to Dakar. On route, a leak with the group's airplane forces them to land in remote Sine-Saloum, where they must reckon with suspicious residents, difficult environmental conditions and supernatural events before they are able to depart.[10]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 48 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads, "Smart, dynamic, and fast-paced, Saloum mixes tones and genres into a tart, smoothly blended treat."[13]
Jeanette Catsoulis reviewed the film positively in The New York Times, saying "The plot is ludicrously jam-packed, but the pace is fleet and the dialogue has wit and a carefree bounce".[14] Richard Kuipers of Variety wrote that "[Saloum] freely mixes and marries the cinematic languages of spaghetti Westerns, samurai dramas and classic monster movies to tell an exciting and distinctly African story".[15] Valerie Complex of Deadline Hollywood praised the film for its "supernatural horror elements", which, according to him also contain "comedy and suspense".[16] In Vulture, Roxana Hadadi praised the film's cinematography, production and sound design and folklore elements, and said the film's "only real disappointment is its visual effects, which once we see them aren’t quite as frightening as what Saloum accomplished through suggestion".[10]
According to Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, the film's "Spirituality, morality, mythology, and mysticism get thrown into a gritty crime thriller blender, culminating in a refreshingly unique type of genre-bender".[17]
Shudder films and documentaries | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Films |
| ||||||||||
Documentaries |