The Tokoloshe (2018)

Everything you’ve ever feared in a horror movie has been artfully sliced and diced into this one – barren cityscapes, an abandoned hospital, rusty beds with wheels that whine, children who see dead people, dead children… And then there’s still The Tokoloshe.

And, no we’re not talking mischievous, leprechaun-like myth. In this supernatural thriller, The Tokoloshe has been reimagined as something much closer to its original manifestation, that of malevolent monster.

The story unfolds with the familiar South African demons of desperation and poverty as the backdrop. A young woman, Busi (Petronella Tshuma), moves to Johannesburg, taking a job as a cleaner in a run-down hospital, working for the worst kind of bad man. She meets a girl called Gracie (Kwande Nkosi) in a similarly wretched situation and they are forced to fight off their twin-terrors together.

This chilling, culturally on-point narrative is the result of a 10-year collaboration between South African writer / director Jerome Pitkane and novelist Richard Kunzman.

The film was successfully shopped around at various festivals throughout Europe, starting with its premiere at Frightfest in London, the UK’s largest international horror film festival, before its South African launch at Comic Con and the Durban International Film Festival.