Jaco Bouwer
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Filmography
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What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Visual/tonal references to Annihilation and Aliens , The Evil Dead cabin/vine vibes, all things oogy Cronenberg, creatures likely inspired by Pan’s Labyrinth , a religious-fervor patriarch in the vein of The Witch , the fungal-spore horror of recent gem In the Earth , the kid-needs-to-get-out-of-the-woods-and-go-to-school arc of Leave No Trace and, of course, Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing (although I sensed more of the mold-fuzz of Alan Moore’s nutty and amazing ’80s comic books).
At night, sightless incarnations that look like something from “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) and sound like and behave like the marauding beasties in “A Quiet Place” (2018) come.
After that is Jaco Bouwer’s Gaia , creepy environmental horror in the same vein as Alex Garland’s Annihilation .
Despite comparisons to Alex Garland’s Annihilation , the better parallel for Gaia might be Randal Kleiser’s The Blue Lagoon .
Fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy and its Annihilation adaptation, and lovers of the defiantly feminine and vengeful natural world will find plenty to chew on in Gaia.
The film is a visual feat and bakes in lore and strange surroundings that would complement itself with a double feature of Alex Garland’s “Annihilation.”
Jaco Bouwer’s formidable woodland creeper Gaia fits snugly into a recent wave of psychedelic folk horror, a subgenre that binds Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Alex Garland’s Annihilation, Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (a recent Sundance release that would make a pitch perfect double feature with Bouwer’s entry) and even Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
Jaco Bouwer’s film boasts a lot of the compelling atmospheric elements that drove Alex Garland’s enigmatic “Annihilation” (2018), but the scant details about the occult and the supernatural and shifting narrative focus detracts from an otherwise stylish effort.
If the film’s locale lends it an alluring novelty, Tertius Kapp’s nominally original screenplay brings to mind recent genre touchstones from “Annihilation” to “A Quiet Place.”
At night, sightless incarnations that look like something from “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) and sound like and behave like the marauding beasties in “A Quiet Place” (2018) come.
Like a cross between “The Last of Us” and “A Quiet Place” with an eco-horror and biblical subtext, Jaco Bower’s “Gaia” gets the viewer lost in the woods of their nightmares, contaminated with deadly creatures lurking in the shadows and an eerie sense of dread.
Then, it begins to feel like a thriller in the image of A Quiet Place .
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Visual/tonal references to Annihilation and Aliens , The Evil Dead cabin/vine vibes, all things oogy Cronenberg, creatures likely inspired by Pan’s Labyrinth , a religious-fervor patriarch in the vein of The Witch , the fungal-spore horror of recent gem In the Earth , the kid-needs-to-get-out-of-the-woods-and-go-to-school arc of Leave No Trace and, of course, Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing (although I sensed more of the mold-fuzz of Alan Moore’s nutty and amazing ’80s comic books).
By the film’s climax, you can see the disparate elements that make it up laid out in front of you as if they were pinned to a wall in a producer’s office — Lara Croft from the new Tomb Raider games, Abrahamic legend, The Witch , The Last of Us — rather than coming together to make something new and invigorating.
Despite comparisons to Alex Garland’s Annihilation , the better parallel for Gaia might be Randal Kleiser’s The Blue Lagoon .
Lushly shot by Jorrie van der Walt, including an opening upside-down landscape disorientation mirroring Midsommar (2019), it’s slow burn verdant peril which creates a vibe more malicious than menacing.
Jaco Bouwer’s formidable woodland creeper Gaia fits snugly into a recent wave of psychedelic folk horror, a subgenre that binds Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Alex Garland’s Annihilation, Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (a recent Sundance release that would make a pitch perfect double feature with Bouwer’s entry) and even Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
The filmmakers also throw a stomach-flipping 180-degree tilt into their opening, because if you aren’t ripping off Midsommar , are you even doing 2020s horror properly?
As a stylistic calling card for Bouwer, it portends bigger things and bigger budgets, showcasing a quivery facility with atmosphere and crafty technical nous that recalls his compatriot Neill Blomkamp at the outset of his career — even if “Gaia” is no “District 9” sleeper in the making.
If at first suggesting Bacurau (2019), Bouwer creates a more cohesive version of something attempted earlier this year by Ben Wheatley with In the Earth , where it appears the god we’ve neglected, Mother Earth, has come to reclaim herself.