Good Madam

Good Madam takes its time to linger on subtle and chilling notes before unveiling its fantastic finish. The only drawback to the film is it hints at more supernatural events than we ever see play out on-screen.

A quiet, tightly wound horror film, Bass’ fourth and most briskly accomplished feature might flirt with the supernatural, but finds terror aplenty in social dynamics that, to many a South African, are perfectly ordinary.

There’s some gnarly imagery that comes once, in Good Madam‘s second half, the supernatural takes over from the historical and characters find themselves falling into the trance of larger, systemic issues plaguing our world for millennia. But the beginning is just as tense and anxiety-inducing in its more normal sense of reality.

The movie doesn’t shy away from magic spells and arcane African blood rituals, but the real dark mojo that Bass is bringing so starkly to the big screen involves the cycles and privilege and exclusion that seems to persist through every attempt at exorcism.

There’s nothing exceptionally freaky outside one or two practical effects of bodily implications, and yet Good Madam still finds nationally significant ways to summon societal fears.

Good Madam is an intriguing, atmospheric movie which doesn’t quite tie up all its sinister portents and implications in a satisfying ending. Yet there is something very unsettling in it.

What I saw was a racially suspect disaster and another exploitation of Black pain for cheap, lazy thrills. Good Madam is a bad movie.