The Lullaby (2017)

Postpartum depression? Post Traumatic Rape Syndrome? Controlling mother syndrome? Haunted by the distant past? A combination of the four? In any case, whatever the girl's problem is-- the cinematography is fantastic! The pacing is excellent! The characters are all well-rounded and realistic. This is a Slasher film, if smart and sassy, so step into this one either able to deal with extreme horror or as a veteran of the same. This is a girl-leaves-home-gets-raped-by-redneck-has-baby-goes-back-home-kills-first-man-who-tries-to-rape-her kind of movie. Just so you know.

I like it, specially the story and the jump scares

The movie has no story to tell and the writers don't seem to care enough about what they wrote. Most scenes are disgusting and disturbing, and cant be categorized as a horror movie at all. I wish I had read the reviews before going to watch this movie and prevented myself to suffer whole through this movie.

Caught this film last night, it was met with much anticipation considering last year's social media buzz on its low distribution by South African cinema franchises, supposedly due to its themes. It's been blogged that the film was inspired by Afrikaans folklore but unfortunately the film never really goes there.It's about a young mother, Chloe played by Reine Swart going through a bad case of social depression. She lives with her mother plus a newly born baby and set in South Africa (although no Black South African actors nor extras are seen). The story specifically takes place in a forest looking location; Eden Rocks, it makes one wonder if it's a reference to the recent controversial "White Christian Only" gated community called "Project Eden" (but that's in the desert area). Anyway, what follows that Chloe has visions, or illusions of a type of boogey man (or more of a boogey woman spectre) referencing the film's opening scenes of early 1900s Dutch (?) Christians participating in ritual sacrifices. Chloe's spectre comes off looking like a flying nun whose apparitions makes her sanity worse throughout the film, but this is where the narrative drags.Director Darrell Roodt, who has been nominated (and has received awards) for his film productions such as 1992's Sarafina. Surprising, this film's weakest points of not developing character depth by using its star power, namely Brandon Auret (from CHAPPIE fame) top billed as Dr. Reeds. This narrative had great potential to use his acting talents to raise the suspense and horror, instead of employing predictable jump scares.Yet, the most notable aspect of "Siembamba" (known as "The Lullaby" abroad) that it's an initiative in developing more contemporary South African cinematic horror. Although its marketing has been trying to do a comparison with the Australian film "The Babadook", but this film could probably be compared to an earlier Millennial Italian horror film, "Ghost Son" by Lamberto Bava (also set in a Southern African location).