Global Horror meets Local Spirits

1. Video film, Genre and The Development of a Film Industry

In the 1980s video films began circulating in Tanzania. Movies from Hollywood,
Hong Kong and India were among the most watched. According to Arjun Appa-
durai, this kind of connection to transnational flows creates a «media scape» as a
basis for the emergence of «imagined worlds» (33). African video films are criti-
cised for their crossover aesthetics and as part of the Soap-Operatisation of Africa, a
format between TV and cinema which doesn’t fit western concepts of these genres.
Claudia Böhme Their «problematic» format prevents them from participating at festivals (Haynes:
1 ff.). According to Karin Barber they occupy a cultural space which is defined as
what it is not (3) – neither art nor film.
Global Horror meets Local Spirits The content of these movies introduced subjects which were not on the local cul-
tural agenda in Tanzania. Filmic depictions of sex, violence and horror were taboo
The Evolution of Tanzania’s Horror Film Genre and seen as cultural misconducts of the class enemy and import of the West. Such
topics were seldom seen in popular Swahili theatre because it was used as a tool for
Tanzanian socialism, Ujamaa, modernisation projects, was obliged to fight against
superstition and promote the idea of modern health care (Lange: 225–6). Video
Transnational flows of video-horror have reached Tanzania. By the mid-1990s art- films’ changing cultural practices1, values and norms can lead to the questioning
ists from different fields like theatre, dance and drums or martial arts had started of the status quo.
to produce video films. The video film not only challenged local popular traditions No other area of western film science is so contested as genre film and genre the-
but also discourses on film aesthetics in the country. Tanzanian culture administra- ory. Film critics have blamed producers’ genre movies for serving a predefined audi-
tors like the Tanzania Arts Council BASATA (Baraza la Sanaa la Taifa) differentiate ence instead of a special audience, as would be the case with film classics (Braudy
between good traditional arts as a tool for the development and education of society 104–5).2 Instead of denying the genre movies the affiliation to «real art» according to
and problematic video film and hip-hop as destructive influences from the West. Braudy, one should try to analyse what these movies actually accomplish:
The production of Nsyuka – filamu ya kwanza ya kutisha ya Tanzania,
«The joy in genre is to see what can be dared in the creation of a new form or the crea-
«the first Tanzanian horror movie», in 2004 not only marked the appropriation of
tive destruction and complication of an old one. The ongoing genre subject there-
the genre but also the development of the Tanzanian video film industry. As is the
fore always involves a complex relation between the compulsions of the past and the
case elsewhere, in Tanzania movie genres are an important means of framing and
freedoms of the present, an essential part of the film experience.» (108–9)
categorising art and help viewers relate to and discuss certain types of films. In this
paper I want to show how filmmakers build up distinct genre aesthetics through the According to Johannes Fabian, research of the genre concept in popular culture
appropriation of different contents, aesthetic and artistic practices. While the com- shows «how genre works when it does work, what it accomplishes, and what it pre-
position of a film is influenced by transnational stylistic currents everywhere, the vents». He sees the meaning of genres especially in the relationship between genre
integration of these sources into local traditions and practices of narrative produc- and power as a «power exercised through acts of distinction and imposition, and
tion is crucial. Tanzanian horror films not only differ from their western counter- power suffered through denial of recognition and through submission to criteria of
parts in their practices of production and reception but also in aesthetics and styles. distinction» (41–2).
I will firstly give an overview of the history of video film production in Tanzania.
In looking at the filamu ya kutisha I want to discuss how these Tanzanian horror
films fit into and/or divert from the western genre conception and if one can talk 1 Like Indian cinema has led to Indian Style in taarab music (see also Graebner 185, Askew 115, Fair
of horror films at all. By giving a close-up perspective of Tanzania’s film monsters 2009) video films have fostered the coming of Tanzania Martial Arts, sarakasi.
2 This disapproval of genre in the arts is according to Leo Braudy rooted in the aesthetic theories of
I want to point to their hybrid nature. In looking at the movies’ narratives, I will the Romantic during which the idea of the singular originality of poetic inspiration gained ground
explore the elements that give them their specific Tanzanian aesthetics. (105–6).

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The development of the Tanzanian video film industry is connected to the evolu- distributed the movie, marking not only the beginning of the video film industry,
tion of certain genres. As with silent movie comedies, where sound was not required but also of the horror film genre in Tanzania. With the genre title filamu ya kutisha
for them to succeed, so comedies marked the initial phase of video film production «frightening film» Tanzanian horror movies are defined by the element of fear, with
from the mid-1990s to the turn of the century, heavily influenced by the former fans watching them based on how scary they are. As in other areas, the genre has
live popular theatre and the movies of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. King blurred boundaries. What could be classified as horror is sometimes defined as
Majuto and Mzee Small, two famous comedians, recorded their sketches onto video filamu ya kutisha or filamu ya kusisimua or as filamu ya kichawi, referring to witch-
in the mid-1990s and sold them to Indian3 businessmen for distribution. In these craft films. Filamu ya kutisha are very popular and function as entry tickets for new
formative years a couple of directors and their small crew produced no more than directors since they almost always guarantee financial success.
one movie a month. Indian-owned companies, which dealt with local music and Mussa Banzi, like Sultan Tamba, by now belongs to the wakongwe (old and wise),
pirated movies from outside the country, established a distribution network in the who started working together in 2003, though later taking different directions. The
market area of Kariakoo.4 In 2003, the industry consisted of only three distribution newcomers included Haji Dilunga and Shariff Jumbe, who began making films in
companies: Wananchi Video Production, GMC and Game 1st Quality – the only 2006 and were obviously influenced by their predecessors, yet also developed their
«African» distributor, distributing only its own movies. GMC kicked off with the own style. Shariff Jumbe, who articulated to be influenced by Hollywood, mixes for-
hip-hop video film Girlfriend (2003), which was a huge success. The Tanzanian eign narrative patterns with local spirit stories such as in his debut Bwawa la Shetani,
audiences however, accustomed to seeing foreign films, criticised the poor quality a vampire remake of Predator (1987). Both filmmakers made use of an underlying
of the movies. Five years later, at least five movies per week were being produced on narrative of killing off protagonists, the principle of body count in the classic horror
DVD due to increasing numbers of Tanzanians owning DVD players.5 Two more film. This newly established subgenre could be called Tanzanian Splatter.
distribution companies, Kapico and Steps Entertainment Ltd., have since entered
the market and the latter has established itself as the most popular in Tanzania.
3. The Hybrid Nature of Horror Movies

2. The Evolution of filamu ya kutisha According to Linda Badley, horror is marked in particular by its trans-mediality
and can be described by Edgar Allen Poe’s «Philosophy of Composition» with the
Robin Wood offers a very simple, basic formula for the horror film, namely: «Nor- text functioning as a ‹technological apparatus› to trigger intense reactions by the
mality is threatened by the monster» with the three variables, normality, the mon- audience (2 ff.). Tanzanian movie-makers draw on ideas and iconographies from
ster and the relationship between the two. Wood defines normality as «the hetero- Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood and local folklore, literature and theatre to
sexual monogamous couple, the family, and the social institutions (police, church, build the narratives. The first horror films to be circulated in Tanzania were shown
armed forces) that support and defend them, «the monster as «society’s basic fears», in local cinemas. With the onset of video film and TV, horror films were more eas-
and continues that «It is the third variable, the relationship between normality and ily available. With the introduction of Nigerian horror films at the beginning of
the Monster, which constitutes the essential subject of the horror film.» (79). The the 2000s the genre’s popularity increased (see also Krings 2007 and 2010).Today
Tanzanian horror film genre was initiated by Mussa Banzi,6 who founded his own foreign horror movies are sold in the markets as Chinese pirated copies in «horror-
actors group the Tamba Arts Group in 2001 with the big dream of making movies. collections» with up to 40 movies on one DVD. Due to the easy availability of films
When his first film Nsyuka was completed in 2003, Wananchi Video Production which might not even be shown in cinemas abroad, the movies create a wealth of
ideas for creating genres, narratives and styles.
3 I will use the terms Indian, Wahindi, and «African» as local categories to distinguish between Like the German «Schauerroman» or the English gothic novel of the 18th and
Tanzanians of Indian and of African origin.
19th centuries, which functioned as a basis for western horror films, horror litera-
4 Smaller production units can be found also in the cities of Mwanza, Tanga, Arusha, Mbeya and
Kigoma. ture in Tanzania plays the same role; in particular novels with stories of first-hand
5 In 2007 the price of DVDs and VCDs was reduced from 8,000 Tsh (USD 5) to 2,500 Tsh (USD 1.60) reports of encounters with witchcraft or supernatural beings. The covers of these
to combat the street vendors, machinga, who sell pirated copies for a third of the original price. leaflets reflect the intertextual character of the novels with a mix of global images
6 Mussa Idi Kibwana Bwaduke was born in Dar es Salaam in 1978. After working as a cartoonist
for several Tanzanian Newspapers, he joined the Kaole Sanaa Group in the mid-1990s, where he of fantasy and horror, such as the mask from the movie Scream (1997) or Michael
trained as a cameraman and director for television serials on ITV (Independent Television). Jackson’s Thriller (1983).

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When I asked Mussa Banzi why he used a certain kind of mise-en-scène he 4.1 Tanzanian Vampires
would say «Nimeitunga tu!» (I have just created it). Several plastic bags full of notes,
The idea for Mussa Banzi’s first movie Nsyuka came from his friend Askofu, who
scripts, storyboards, comic sketches, newspaper articles serve as inspiration for a
told him about the ancestral mythology of the Wanyakyusa, who live in southern
story. While the narrative basis is mainly taken from local stories, the monster itself
Tanzania’s Mbeya Region. They believe that the dead enter the underworld ubusy-
is adapted from global horror figures like vampires or zombies. The soundtrack,
uka as abasyuka. Sometimes during the night, the abasyuka come up and gather at
sometimes a recomposed soundtrack from Hollywood films, makes the work of art
graves, near fires lit for them. If their descendants stop praying for them, the abasy-
complete. Tobias Wendl compares this process in his description of Ghanaian and
uka can get angry and punish humans (Busse 8–9), as also shown in the movie.
Nigerian horror movies, to musical «sampling», which results in
In line with stylistic currents of western horror movies, in the opening
«[…] a highly original, hybrid cocktail; and in this respect the current video produc- sequence of Nsyuka the camera takes the viewer over a night time cemetery to the
tion can aptly be conceived as a ‹local address› for re-configuring and re-articulat- soundtrack of Hollywood’s psycho-slasher classic Friday the 13th (1980). After a
ing the global flow of images for new local audiences». («Wicked Villagers» 266) cut, the viewer gets a first glimpse of the monster Nsyuka, digging his way out of
a grave. When he finally emerges, the camera follows his feet as he walks slowly
through the cemetery.
The story begins with Dorin, who has a nightmare about finding her housemaid
4. The Tanzanization of Horror – the Making of Filamu ya kutisha and her dog brutally slaughtered by an evil monster (Nsyuka). It leaves her restless
and she sees it as a bad omen as she hasn’t been able to fall pregnant. She visits a
No other film genre draws so heavily on myths as horror films, however, unlike
mganga who tells her that her mother took a forbidden trail near Nsyuka’s home-
their western counterparts, African filmmakers use local myths in particular from
stead while she was pregnant with her. The only way to break this spell would be
their respective ethnic groups as the basis for a film. In Tanzania this applies to the
to have intercourse with him while being possessed by Nsyuka. Dorin decides to
myth and folklore of the Zaramo people on the coast near Dar es Salaam, to which
visit a female mganga, who brings Nsyuka into her fiancé’s body and the two have
many horror filmmakers belong. These stories often also revolve around witches
sex. Dorin gets pregnant, forgets the trouble, marries, and finally gives birth to a
and their evil powers, or around the mganga, healer, who appears in most of the
baby boy. But when the mganga’s guiding charm is removed, her pregnancy gets
movies but is obligatory in filamu ya kutisha. Wendl shows how the healer, witch
troublesome and the doctor sees a kind of animal in her body. Nsyuka appears and
doctor or jujuman can be compared to the mad scientist in Western horror films:
warns her against an abortion. While growing up her son soon shows all the signs
«What, from a structuralist point of view, makes the jujumen resemble the ‹mad of a monster’s son.
scientist› [...] is that both attempt to transgress normality and manipulate the natu- Emmanuel Kasoga aka Bob Kijiti, a Rasta musician, was cast as the monster, as
ral reproductive cycle. The jujuman operates in his shrine, the mad scientist in his Rastafarians are commonly viewed as criminal or evil. Nsyuka has long dreadlocks,
laboratory. Generally they both overestimate their powers and their creations (or a dirty gown, long teeth and nails and appears to Dorin with raised arms, laughing
transformative acts) go out of control. [...] A significant difference between the two loudly before he disappears through the wall. «Nimeongeza» (I have added some
is that the mad scientist is largely inspired and motivated by his own mad dreams, things) said Banzi when explaining the outward appearance of Nsyuka.7 The lead
whereas the jujuman does not act out his own dreams, but those of his clients». actor refers to Nsyuka as Tanzania’s first Dracula movie, with Dracula as one of
(«Wicked Villagers» 275–6) the most depicted figures in films around the globe. However, unlike the classical
vampires, despite his thirst for blood, raised arms and diabolic laughter, Nsyuka is
By using this ethnic folklore, Tanzanian filmmakers achieve what can be called an
neither out for romantic love nor does he behave like a typical abasyuka.
authentication of horror. This is similar to what Jigal Beez describes with the genre
Although Nsyuka was a big success, Mussa Banzi separated from the Tamba
of katuni za miujuza or miracle comics (153), where the movie-makers draw on a
Arts Group due to disputes over the distribution of finances. He took half of the
cultural repertoire of fear to frighten or shock their audiences.
actors with him and founded a new group. In Shumileta, his first movie with the
With the following Tanzanian horror film examples I want to show how film-
group, Banzi used the vampiric element again at the beginning of the film.
makers artistically combine different sources of horror aesthetics. To identify their
‹Tanzanianness›, I want to point to the stylistic parallels and differences to horror
films from other regions. 7 Interview with Mussa Banzi, Dar es Salaam, 26.09.2006.

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The violence of the final «kiss of death» in the neck is not usually attributed
to local spirits, who force their victims to love them. Like Nsyuka, Shumileta has
turned into an evil vampiric monster, raising her arms and laughing diabolically
after a torturing and killing feast before vanishing.
As the belief in spirits is common in Tanzania, these stories are more easily con-
nected to people’s own experiences. While watching Shumileta, a friend’s mother
remembered a neighbour who was haunted by a love spirit and consulted a mganga
to get rid of the unwanted lover. In the movie, Mack’s mother-in-law does exactly
the same: while Mack is living under water with his fiancée Monte having disap-
peared, Monte’s mother visits the powerful Mganga Ndele, who uses an «African
television»8 to show the mother how her daughter was transformed into a chicken
and where her son-in-law can be found.
The idea of using Predator’s soundtrack in Shumileta came from Shar-
iff Jumbe, a fan of Banzi’s horror movies, who started his Tsunami Arts Group in
2007 with Bwawa la Shetani (Swamps of the Devil). The story, which was about a
mysterious well in Msanga Kisarawe, comes from his grandfather, a Mzaramo. An
1 Shumileta ancestor spirit named Mwingila causes people who go to the well to fall ill or even
die. The curse originated from a deadly attack on a young couple who were raped
According to Petra Flocke, the female vampire can be considered a figure created and beaten on their way to the well.
by men to demonise femininity through her obvious eroticism. The vampiress does The other source of inspiration for the movie was Predator, one of Jumbe’s
not entirely fit the model of femininity attributed to women by their respective favourite Hollywood action movies. Due to production constraints, the action
societies (7–8). Like other vampiresses, Shumileta embodies a mediation and nego- movie Predator became a low budget horror movie:
tiation of changing conceptions of gender relations in Tanzania.
«So I have made it like the mixing of ideas. I mixed the true story of that place
In the film, Shumileta is sent to earth to find a husband by her parents, who
[Msanga, Kisarawe] with Predator, because if people start thinking about the true
reign in an underwater world. After having stilled her blood thirst, killing several
part of the story the movie gets more interesting for them. But like in Predator
men while working as a prostitute, she meets Mack, a young man who gives her
they [the characters] are strangers in this forest. So somebody transforms and after-
a ride home at night. But as Shumileta has left her visible traces, Mack’s fiancée,
wards swallows one after the other.»9
Monte, gets jealous. Together with Mack, she goes to visit her but they find only her
sister who tells them that Shumileta had died many years previously. The spirit of Bwawa la Shetani starts like many other horror movies: a group of fourteen
Shumileta follows Mack until Monte considers consulting a mganga. But Shumileta young people travel happily to a national park where their car breaks down when
turns her into a chicken, kidnaps Mack and flies with him to the underwater world. the engine overheats. After one of the group dives into water at a nearby swamp,
At the beginning of the film, to the repetitive sound of a section of Predator’s blue lightning appears, he is transformed and has long teeth and nails and blood
soundtrack, the viewer sees an object flying towards the Earth. After the opening dripping from his mouth. He starts hunting his friends until only three of them
sequence where Shumileta comes to earth to find a fiancé, we next see her walking remain. They manage to reach a nearby village, where an old woman tells them the
along Tunisia Road in Dar es Salaam in a glittering short dress waiting for custom- story of the swamps.10
ers with her fellow prostitutes. After she managed to attract the first man, she leads
him to the nearby cemetery where the viewer witnesses a dispute about money and 8 A pan-African phenomenon whereby new media forms are combined with older divination tech-
safe sex, which finally results in the man paying more for unsafe sex and a bite from niques which would traditionally have projected pictures onto the surface of water (Behrend 195).
Shumileta. Like many vampire narratives whose stories are linked to the fear of epi- In Tanzania, healers used a kibuyu; a prepared calabash, a mirror, or a clay pot in which the client
sees his enemies on the water’s surface.
demic plagues, as Nosferatu to the plague, Shumileta is a discourse about HIV/ 9 Interview with Shariff Jumbe, Dar es Salaam, 26.03.2008.
AIDS and Banzi wanted to educate his viewers about the dangers of the disease. 10 See also Kilian (302 ff.) for the Nigerian remake of Predator, i.e. Tarzomar Shahada (2002).

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As in the second part of Predator 2 (1990), in Bwawa la Shetani No. 2, the Popobawa in their neighbourhoods.13 Stories initially surfaced in 1965 on Pemba
monster (here the infected young man), comes to the city (Dar es Salaam) and con- Island (Parkin: 114) where an angry sheikh is said to have called the spirit to life
tinues his killing. An American style is created with inserted pictures from the New to take revenge on his neighbours in a dispute over a love affair. In the varying
York skyline and the presentation of the dead body of a girl with the song Gangsta’s descriptions the spirit is sometimes described as a black, bat-like creature with big
Paradise. The group of young people who survived, together with two policemen, wings, one eye, pointy ears and long claws. Most importantly and as a recurring
finally return to the village near the swamps and perform a ritual with a mganga, to theme of the rumour, the victims have to report the attack in public to prevent
release the bewitched and the dead from the curse. Popobawa’s return.
«We added a little bit of teeth and fingernails» said Banzi about the creation of While local discussions of Popobawa mainly revolve around whether he exists,
Shumileta and continued: «Since we don’t know what the spirits or their bodies the myth has troubled social scientists. Explanations reach from being one of the
look like, we added a little bit, so what we did, we created something which could incubus legends resulting from sleep paralysis (Walsh 14), reflections of the horrors
be enjoyable for the viewers, but we are not sure if spirits have long teeth like that.»11 of slavery (Parkin 115) or political transformative eras, as the first rumours came up
Discourses on vampirism were first reported in early 20th century colonialist one year after Zanzibar’s 1964 revolution and reappeared close to elections in 1995
Kenya and Tanganyika by Luise White following rumours of blood-sucking fire (Walsh 19). As Zanzibar hosted Africa’s first colour television station and was one
fighters called wazimamoto («Cars Out of Place» 31). The Dar es Salaam fire fight- of the main centres of cinema business in East Africa, we might think of Popobawa
ers were said to suck the blood of innocent men, leaving them impotent and lazy. In as a reflection of creatures like Dracula (Walsh 16) or Batman.
women’s housing settlements in Nairobi in the 1920s and 1930s, single women and In Dilunga’s adaptation of Popobawa it is not a male sheikh but the female witch
prostitutes were not only victims but also hired by the wazimamoto to get access to Mamakibibi who calls Popobawa to punish her relatives. Popobawa not only rapes
more male victims (Speaking with Vampires 151 ff.). his victims but, as in a splatter movie, kills his enemies one by one, including the
A more recent discourse can be found in the Swahili term unyonyaji, exploita- witch who originally called him into existence. Popobawa’s sodomising charac-
tion, derived from the verb kunyonya (to suck(le)). As James Brennan shows in ter, shown in several scenes, shows its connection to discourses on hetero- and
national political discourse, the Marxist picture of the blood-sucking capitalist has homosexuality (see also Thompson 11 ff., Walsh 16 f.). As Katrina Daly Thomp-
been projected onto Indian, Arab and European as well as African businessmen son has shown in her analysis of collected Popobawa stories from Zanzibar, these
as the main enemies of the socialist project Ujamaa in Tanzania (398). This dis- discourses are a means to talk about sex and sexuality (13 ff.). In a side narrative
course can also be applied to the video industry when directors and actors accuse of the story, a lesbian woman tries to seduce a much younger girl, the first depic-
the Wahindi producers of exploiting «African» artists. tion of homosexuality in Tanzanian movies. This holds also true for discourses on
HIV/AIDS, when the worried victims of Popobawa ask a traditional healer if the
spirit can transmit the disease, which he confirms. Not only does the film in this
4.2 Tanzanian Spirits way counter western biomedical explanations of HIV/AIDS but also the denial of
In 2008 Haji Dilunga started shooting a movie called Popobawa (Bat Wing) – the supernatural beings such as Popobawa.
story of an evil sex spirit who rapes his victims anally – and invited me to visit the In a scene set in a small HIV-testing dispensary, I (cast as the doctor) read the
shooting. It was the subject of diverse newspaper, internet and blog articles and results of a medical examination to Popobawa’s victims. As I tell them, the results
also became part of diverse pop cultural products. In 2007, John P. Oscar, a young neither show that they have been raped nor infected with HIV. But, as a western
cartoonist from Dar es Salaam, published the gothic novel Usiku wa machungu – medic doesn’t believe in spirits, in improvising my role I advise them to consult a
Mikononi mwa Popobawa (Night of Bitterness – In the Hands of Popobawa).12 Haji psychiatrist. The idea was highly approved by the director and led to an extra scene
Dilunga told me he wanted to make a movie based on a real story (as the open- in which Popobawa would haunt me while sleeping to shatter my rational explana-
ing credits would later on state) as most of the audience had heard rumours of tion of the case. When waking up the next morning with the feeling of having been
raped, the rational European doctor comes to the conclusion that Popobawa could
11 Interview with Mussa Banzi, Dar es Salaam, 26.09.2006. actually exist.
12 The cover of the book presents Popobawa as Star Wars’ Master Yoda with batwings, one yel-
low eye, vampire teeth and claws, flying, with a beautiful woman and an American skyline in the
background. On the back cover some Yoda-Popobawas together with a dragon are flying around a 13 Personal communication with Bashir Rajabu, owner of the Titanic video library in Magomeni
medieval castle. Mapipa, Dar es Salaam.

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In the second part of Shumileta, the initial vampire theme is left aside and the Theatre Group in Tanzania, The Chameleon16, is a variation of the zombie narrative.
story revolves around Shumileta as a jini ya bahari (sea spirit) or jini ya mahaba In the play, the main character’s aunt transforms him into a zombie, making him
(love spirit). These stories are often depicted in local newspapers and are discussed work on her and other sorcerers’ fields until his father rescues him (Lange 224).
in great detail.14 It was again Mussa Banzi who took up the topic in his movie Kihongwe-Nguvu
The first movie which prominently represents water spirits is July Tax’s Sala- za Giza (The Pack Donkey-Powers of Darkness) (2005). In the movie Rolita
din – Samaki Mtu trilogy. The film was produced in Mwanza15, on the shores of bewitches her lover Desmond, who is married to another woman, using a zombie
Lake Victoria in Northern Tanzania, featuring mermaids swimming in the lake. to satisfy her material desires. Banzi also used the zombie theme as a metaphor for
As in West Africa, the mermaids are played by Indian actresses with Indian-style the exploitation of artists in the video film industry.17
costumes and jewellery (see also Meyer 29). July Tax uses Sukuma oral literature as Another depiction of zombies can be found in the theatre play Ngoma wa
told to him by his grandmother, and creatively combines them with aesthetics and Ng’wanamalundi (The Dance of the Ng’wanamalundi, which was made into a video
styles from different sources. film in 2006 by Ben Mtobwa. The story portrays the classic White Zombie (1932)
At the start of the film we learn the history of the main character Sarah and her in displaying the powerful healer Mganga Chidama, who transforms people into
twin sister Subira, attacked by gangsters who kill their father and tear out their vizuu18 (zombies) to work on his fields. As in White Zombie, he turns a young
mother’s eyes. Sarah, who flees to the seashore, is taken care of by a couple of mer- woman, Nyamiti, whom he wants to marry into a zombie.
maids, whilst her sister Subira is left in the bushes and raised by a mganga. Later In 2007, the zombie theme was revived, this time as ndondocha (zombies)
Sarah is sent by her mermaid mother to punish the gangsters who were involved in appearing in two movies by Haji Dilunga and Salum Karanda. In Uwanja wa
her father’s death. As in a splatter film, she brutally transforms, kills, tears out body Dhambi 1&2 (Place of Sin) (2007) and Mama Mwenye Nyumba (The House
parts and eats her victim’s bowels throughout the three parts of the film. Between Owner) (2007), annoying relatives who are involved in inheritance disputes are
these rather brutal splatter scenes the director provides the viewers respite with transformed into ndondocha by evil witches and used as slaves. In Usiku wa balaa
karate fight scenes, comic intermissions in which two comedians comment on (The Crazy Night) (2008), a zombie kills an entire family with the exception of the
events, and when the director himself appears as the lover of Sarah we see them father, who is absent from the house due to a love affair and doesn’t want to come
dancing and singing in a Bollywood-style manner. home. The film ends with the whole zombie family attacking the youngest daughter,
who remains as the «final girl».19

4.3 Tanzanian Zombies

Another popular horror figure which makes up a rather smaller Tanzanian subgenre 5. Conclusion
is the zombie. According to Peter Geschiere who has been working in Cameroon,
African zombie-narratives appear as a new form of witchcraft where witches no The globalisation of the horror film can be viewed as part of a travelling aesthetics,
longer eat their victims but transform them into zombie workers. The zombie-theme starting in Germany with early horror film classics, via America with the estab-
as a reflection of new forms of wealth which have or have not been incorporated lishment of Hollywood horror movies and finally to the African video industries
into society, is related to the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of new lux- which, like in Tanzania, appropriated the genre.
ury items (Geschiere 139). Filmic zombies came to Africa via VHS from the US in As I have shown with the examples above, these stories, as part of a rich storytell-
the 1980s as vengeful ghosts of those who have been sacrificed for money (Wendl, ing tradition in Tanzania, are remediated in film. When looking at the construction
«Zombies» 287 f.). As Lange mentions, one of the theatre plays of the Muungano of these monsters, the remediation in the new medium has severely changed them.

16 Zombies are related to chameleons, because in changing their colour they can adjust to their envi-
14 Like the serialised story Nilvyopendwa na jini (How I was Loved by a Spirit) in the newspaper ronment. The Nigerian movie Haunted House (2000) begins with a house owner who lets a
amani published in 2006/2007 by Kulwa Mwaibale, about a young man in Dar es Salaam who was chameleon out of a juju-coffin (see Wendl, «Wicked Villagers» 284 f.).
caught by a spirit woman and brought to the underworld. The TV soap opera Jumba la Dhahabu 17 Interview with Mussa Banzi, Dar es Salaam, 26.09.2006.
(House of Gold), which ran on TBC in 2007/2008, revolved around the water/love spirit Kabula. 18 «a kind of evil spirit, said to be capable of being employed by witches and wizards to enter the
15 The film production started in 2004 with Thamani ya Damu (The Value of Blood), an action houses in the form of a rat and kill people by devouring their livers. They are said to be the spirits
movie. The most popular filmmaker is July Tax with his Art Group Tunda Sanaa who became of people thought to be dead but who were in reality spirited away by magic» (Johnson 214).
famous with the two part Mtemi (2007/08) and the Saladin – Samaki Mtu Trilogy (2007/8). 19 Last female survivor in a horror film (see also Creed 1993).

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Claudia Böhme Global Horror meets Local Spirits

While the creatures of folklore have been rather ambiguous in their character, nei- Works Cited Flocke, Petra. Vampirinnen. ‹Ich schaue in
ther solely good nor bad, they have turned into evil and bloodthirsty monsters in Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large. den Spiegel und sehe nichts.› Die kulturel-
Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. len Inszenierungen der Vampirin. Tübin-
the movies. The transformation into monsters is itself the subject of horror film, as
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. gen: Konkurs, 1999. Print.
the classic example Frankenstein shows. And if the mganga is the equivalent of the Print. Geschiere, Peter. The Modernity of Witch-
mad scientist in Western horror films, as Wendl proposes, the video filmmakers Askew, Kelly. Performing the Nation: Swahili craft. Politics and the Occult in Postcoloni-
themselves are like mad scientists in bringing the monsters to life. Musical Performance and the Production al Africa. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia,
While Tanzanian horror movies stand for a hybridisation of different aesthetics of Tanzanian National Culture. Chicago: 1997. Print.
U of Chicago P, 2002. Print. Haynes , Jonathan. Introduction. Nigerian Vi-
through which sources of global and local horror are brought together, the examples
Badley, Linda. Film, Horror, and the Body deo Films. Ed. Jonathan Haynes. Rev. and
have shown that filmmakers have developed their own type of horror film aesthet- Fantastic. Westport: Greenwood P, 1995. exp. ed. Athens: Ohio UP, 2000. 1–36. Print.
ics. Although Tanzanian filmmakers use western horrific elements in their films, Print. Johnson, Frederick. A Standard Swahili-Eng-
these movies do not completely fit into the western genre category. Not only do the Beez, Jigal. «Großstadtfieber und Hexen- lish Dictionary. 1939. Oxford: Oxford UP,
directors mostly believe in supernatural beings, they also consider their movies as meister. Horror- und Fantasycomics aus 1997. Print.
Tansania.» Africa Screams. Das Böse in Kilian, Cassis: Schwarz Besetzt. Postkoloniale
highly educational. When I asked the filmmakers about their reasons for making
Kino, Kunst und Kult. Ed. Tobias Wendl. Planspiele im Afrikanischen Film. Biele-
horror movies, they postulated a rather cathartic approach as movies are supposed Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, 2004. feld: Transcript, 2012. Print.
to force their viewers to look at a distorted mirror of society which should lead to 153–63. Print. Krings, Matthias. «Afrikanische Video-
self-reflection and change. In showing witchcraft, for example, they are trying to Behrend, Heike. «Call and Kill. Zur Verzau- Vampire-Wiedergänger zwischen den
persuade their audiences to give up sorcery practices and concentrate on their faith, berung und Entzauberung westlicher Kulturen.» All About Evil. Das Böse. Ed.
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be it Muslim or Christian. With the cemetery setting in Shumileta, which could
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be classified as a typical element of the western horror genre, Banzi wanted to show Albert Kümmel. Munich: Fink, 2003. – «Nollywood Goes East. The Localization
people that prostitutes actually do take their suitors to cemeteries. The horror film 287–300. Print. of Nigerian Video Films in Tanzania.«
is also used to discuss former taboos like gender relations and sexuality. In Nsyuka Brennan, James. «Blood Enemies: Exploi- Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-
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Magie. Bonn: Holos, 1998. Print. Meyer, Birgit. «Visions of Blood, Sex and
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Strange Hybrids from a Hong Kong Studio
Wuxia and Hollywood Fantasy in A Chinese Ghost Story

In many aspects Hong Kong genre films from the 1980s and 1990s can be described
as a cinema of continuous movement. The mise-en-scène consisted of transient
spaces with shifting symbolic meanings from exalted comedy to traces of the sub-
lime. Wirework stunts defeated gravity and well-known genre dynamics were accel-
erated up to a point that even the most obvious standard situation seemed to be
fresh and innovative because of elusive editing and spiraling camera angles.
Cultural philosopher Ackbar Abbas characterizes these transient spaces as a
culture of disappearance, «that responds to a specific and unprecedented histori-
cal situation, […] where ‹imperialism› and ‹globalism› are imbricated with each
other.» (72) As an alternative to regarding the Hong Kong cinema of the 1980s
and 1990s as pure spectacle and strictly commercial Abbas in reference to Paul
Virilio defines the specific historical situation of Hong Kong before the handover
to China in 1997 as déjà disparu, «its main task is to find means of outflanking, or
simply keeping pace with, a subject always on the point of disappearing – in other
words, its task is to construct images out of clichés.» (80) This position contra-
dicts the international reception of Hong Kong films from this era as universally
appealing because of their rediscovery of a certain kind of cinematic naiveté. Abbas
rejects the reduction to formalist aspects as well as film scholar Tan See Kam, who
considers the Hong Kong cinema as being «produced by, and productive of, the
interplay between internal and external forces, filmic, cultural or otherwise.» (15)
The following article will consider these cultural approaches but rather than taking
sides in the ongoing power play between cultural and formalist analyses it tries to
create a dialogue between both tendencies. Focusing on the paradigmatic exam-

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