Gaia (2021) Challenging Ecological South African Body Horror (Review)

While horror cinema has always been away from the gaze of the mainstream, that doesn’t make it less susceptible to trends. Ghosts and zombies are unaffected by the passing trends of the time. Everything else though passes with whatever is the cutting edge discourses of the time. Now, it is the turn of folk horror which over the past year or so has bled into stories that take a decidedly ecological spin to their tales of the unexpected. Out today is the latest outing for from this phase of ecological horror, and from a very unexpected corner of the world to boot too – Jaco Bouwer’s South African made, Gaia. Which, as it just so happens, would make for a great double bill with Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth.

Gabi (Monique Rockman) and Winston (Anthony Oseyemi) work as rangers in a natural reserve, and while out completing their duties, they become separated. Winston eventually meets his doom at the hand of deadly nearby flora and fauna and Gabi has a hole blown through her foot from a nasty trap left by off-the-grid survivalists Barend (Carel Nel) and his son Stefan (Alex can Dyk). The survivalist father and son duo have left such a dangerous trap out in the woods because the pair aren’t alone out in the isolated woodlands. Something else calls this place home – something primal. To cut the foreplay short, have you played either of Naughty Dog’s critically acclaimed the last of us games? Well, that. Barend also is writing an anti-societal manifesto and suspiciously disappears into the woods for long stretches of time.

The horror of Gaia comes from unexpected avenues. When you have a fungal infection spreading that turns people into spiralling mushroomed headed zombie proxies, you’d think Bouwer would lean into that. And he does. There are many tense altercations between the three survivors and a horrific abomination whose very breath and blood are contagious. Tense standoffs with four people stood silent in a nightmarish Mexican standoff from the most hellish corner of the natural world. However, the movie instead opts for a much more patient approach to horror storytelling with the piece instead functioning much more like a three hander interspersed with nightmares, psychedelic visions and body horror cordyceps growths on the flesh. This is a slow movie, albeit one with a threat bubbling away through every strained second.

I uttered a few of magic words there that should surely have any horror fans ears prick up, body horror. In invoking that subgenre made famous by Cronenberg, I am basically invoking the wrath of practical effects and ideas. Over the year, there have been many body horror movies that use tricks that are played out, boring and, by the numbers, they just get a pass by being gross. Gaia is no such thing. One of its plot threads literally sees nature infect humankind with an unavoidable and horrific mutation – and horrific it is too. Avoiding spoilers, there are a few occasions throughout where the characters happen upon or even become a bloodcurdling hybrid of homo-sapien, tree and mushroom and the effects are stunning. No rubbery beasts from the most perverted of imaginations here – credit and kudos to the production team for bringing a brand of practical effects that look hyper-real, so disturbing you can’t peel your eyes away from this combination of prosthetics and stop animation. Other effects are no slouch either with the gore of bits like Gabi having a literal hole in her foot being appropriately wince-inducing, too.

 Other facets of the horror that are more cerebral in their intentions too, with the use of brooding musical composition scoring montages of seeming innocuous activities turning them much more menacing. Whether it is staring deep into the innards of a tree with the surrounding air drenched with small easily inhalable things floating in the air. It reminds of Hideo Nakata’s Ring and how it turned things that could rarely been used as visions of horror into the creepiest sights imaginable. Unfortunately Gaia doesn’t even come even remotely close to reaching the highs of Nakata’s 1999 masterpiece, as such, this is the sort of horror movie that requires a lot from its audience – I have already mentioned that this a slow burn, and while it is comfortably better than a lot of the slow burn dread horror movies coming out of America it operates in a register that is evasive and obscure which will undoubtedly alienate.

The characters, while beautifully acted, don’t have a lot going on. Gabi, especially, becomes an incredibly hard character to pin down as her motivations don’t really seem to follow any internal logic for who we understand her character to be. It’s not a problem in the grand scheme of things, however, when you get to one specific dialogue exchange between Gabi and a Barend, who at this specific point in his character arc, has utterly lost his mind – the script becomes trite and stale. In this exchange, he rants and raves about the end of humanity and how modern man has lost empathy for anything other than crass consumerism and I hate to explain it to this way, but as soon as this passage hit it deflated my interest in Gaia. Moments like this have become the ecological/folk horror equivalent of the subtext in zombie movies, where the shuffling undead represent consumerism or that humans are the real monsters after all. From a personal perspective, any of those touchstones, the one in Gaia included, are plot beats that push me into deep apathy.

After having its run at festivals like Frightfest, and now having its debut on VOD – there is just as much to recommend Gaia for as there are reasons to give it a wide berth. For those who want to dig out voices at the corners of horror cinema, a south African movie is a must-see, especially one with a stance on body horror that has never been pulled off before with such style and intriguing terror. A must for the fan of ambitious and experimental horror movies. For everyone else, Gaia is an intentionally difficult watch, albeit one with incredible effects work. For me, it’s worth a watch either way.

THANKS FOR READING ROBS’S REVIEW OF GAIA

Reportedly drummer Dave Rowntree still finds this film unwatchable; Graham and Ewan are a little more generous. That said, the film’s main asset is the one director Matthew Longfellow barely seems to notice: it depicts the band on the verge of releasing Modern Life is Rubbish, an album which saved them from one-hit wonder status and set the agenda for the next decade of British rock music.

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