Ghetto Goblin – review

Director: Jordan Harland

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

For this South African film that was originally titled Blood Tokoloshe and I owe Simon Bacon thanks for putting me on to it. What we get is a low budget film that has the issues one would imagine from a low budget film but also some fascinating lore, an interesting look at religious relations in a post-colonial country and a coded simile for sexually transmitted disease.

creating the Tokoloshe

The Tokoloshe appears in Bane as a variant of the Tikoloshi. The Tikoloshi is described as being from the folklore of the Xhosa people of Lesotho – which is encircled by South Africa. The description of the creation of the creature in Bane partially matches the creation of it in this – disinterring a corpse and removing its eyes and tongue. In this it also involves removing the ears – but misses elements such as the very act of creating the creature meaning the death, within a year, of a family member.

bite marks

A much bigger difference is that the Tikoloshi is said to have a giant penis (that it slings over its shoulder) and takes payment for its services by raping women and draining their energy – making it an energy vampire. In this the Tokoloshe attacks girls and women, biting them (and leaving vampire like marks) and the blood it takes fills the calabash associated with the creature. The owner whispers into the calabash with his desires (mostly money and sex with women) and must thank the Tokoloshe when it provides. If the blood in it is spilt or dripped even then the girls it provides for its master will disappear and the calabash must never fully fill.

Msimbithi Mahamba as Mthunzi

In this the owner of the Tokoloshe is Mthunzi (Msimbithi Mahamba) and the opening of the film shows him creating his supernatural creature. He has been told the secret by a Sangoma, or traditional healer and mystic, called Bheka (Siphiwe Masinga) and we see Mthunzi with a woman and then picking up money from a counter and whispering thank you to the Tokoloshe through the calabash. We also see the creature move through the township via a pov camera and an attack on a girl (an incident that Bheka is brought to). When Mthunzi wants even more money, we see a young girl attacked in her bed and the creature leaves vampire bite like marks on her neck.

headline

The girl’s mother, in the first instance, presents her daughter to a journalist (Itumeleng Mokoena) and this leads to a headline that reads “Tokoloshe drank my daughter’s blood!” – a headline that seems to amuse Mthunzi when he sees it. She then takes the daughter to local Christian priest the Reverend Simon (Simon Msizi Nwamba). Simon believes the attack must have been by an animal and will brook no discussion about the supernatural creature. As more women are attacked, he organises men to hunt an animal and this leads, eventually, to the killing of a scapegoated dog. The way the Christian priest and the Sangoma are drawn is one of the more interesting aspects of the film.

Sangoma and priest

The two do come together, though this is despite the fact that Bheka actually knows for certain it is a Tokoloshe and exactly who created it, facts he singularly fails to reveal to the townspeople. To be fair, he does nearly say how he knows what it is but is interrupted – although we don’t know if he would have been honest. Interestingly the Reverend, who is a priest of the coloniser’s God, always speaks to the township in English, whereas Bheka speaks only in the local dialect (I’m not 100% sure which language it is but potentially it is isiZulu). Bheka offers people traditional wards and Simon does eventually come to believe, when he sees the Tokoloshe with his own eyes (and gets covered with gore as it murders a victim). He does try and ward it with a crucifix at one point but it doesn’t work.

The Tokoloshe

The Tokoloshe is mostly invisible but when it appears it has a primate like face, with red eyes, is surrounded in shadow and is seen at one point as a shadow behind a screen. It speaks to Mthunzi, calling him greedy and, when the calabash is perilously close to filling, chastises the man for using a straw to try and drink the blood (lowering the level without spilling the blood). The Tokoloshe turns on its creator eventually, determined to kill the women it enchanted into sleeping with Mthunzi first. Given that these women were innocent victims of Mthunzi’s lust, the desire to kill them ahead of his creator means that the Tokoloshe can be read as representing an STD. Mthunzi has also fallen in love with one of the women, Boithumelo (Petunia Gabrielle Modisapodi), and so wants to spirit her away to save her.

shadow of the Tokoloshe 

There is almost a symbiotic relationship between the Tokoloshe and its creator – which may be why the creature wants to continue its evil ways taking out Mthunzi’s lovers before turning its attention to him, as killing him will be deadly to the creature. The film effects aren’t the best in the world but the design of the Tokoloshe means that it is rather effective despite the lower budget. We get some bloody moments with the Tokoloshe causing the calabash to bleed and the blood covering the floor beneath the cabinet it sits in. However, the story seems to have gaps and some logic leaps – how a viewer reads Bheka is either as almost sociopathic (the situation is ultimately his fault and he knows how to end it but, despite confronting Mthunzi, he does not end the situation) or the character’s actions are not plotted well. I am plumping for the former.

Petunia Gabrielle Modisapodi as Boithumelo 

This is never going to be classed as a great film, beyond the holes/gaps mentioned, the acting tends towards the amateurish and the direction lacks a tension that would raise the film up. But, nevertheless, it is incredibly interesting and worthwhile for the use of an indigenous folklore and for the interesting post-colonial lens (with the way language and religion is used). At the time of writing, in the UK the film is free to watch on Plex and carries English subtitles for the local dialect parts. 4 out of 10 tries to balance the low budget issues against the interesting aspects.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK