Achoura

The storyline is familiar to horror hounds: A young boy mysteriously disappears while he is out playing with three of his friends. 25 years later he reappears, and the gang of four team up to settle the score with the horrific monster from their childhood that they have tried to forget all these years: a hungry, child-eating creature named Boughatate, that is once again loose in the streets of Casablanca.

Achoura is clearly inspired by classic horror films of the 80s and 90s, and the most prominent source is probably Stephen King’s IT. A well-known formula, however, director Talal Selhami manages to breathe fresh air into old genre tropes by incorporating folklore and urban legends from Morocco. The final result is a delightfully dark horror film.

Mads Wølner Voss

Director

The French/ Moroccan director Talal Selhami (b. 1982) has previously made the short film Sinistra (2006), which was shown at Sitges International Fantasy Film Festival, and the feature film Mirages (2010) produced by Nabil Ayouch, which was screened at Marrakech Film Festival. Achoura is his second feature film.

This film is part of