Hello, and welcome to Week 2 of Fandom Horrorfest 2020! This week, I’ll be focusing on horror directors and the contributions they’ve made to our favorite genre. While I could’ve gone the direction of just talking about the more popular horror masters, I figured 1) you could get that kind of list literally anywhere on the internet, and 2) why not include some more diverse creators, because diversity, much like horror, is kickass! So please enjoy week 2, and I hope it encourages you to look into some movies and creators that you hadn’t thought about before!
Mati Diop
Perhaps the newest name to grace this year’s Horrorfest is Mati Diop, a Black French director who recently won critical acclaim with her horror/romance film Atlantics at last year’s Cannes. Diop is the daughter of Senegalese musician Wasis Diop and was the first Black female director to be nominated for the Cannes’ Festival’s highest prize. Her movie Atlantics has won several titles at film festivals and is a remarkable start into the horror genre as Diop’s first directed movie.
Atlantics tells a complex story of social crisis, romance, and socioeconomic inequality in the city of Dakar in Senegal. It is not very often that horror films depict countries other than the US or other Westernized country, so the setting immediately sets Atlantics apart in the genre. Its distinction grows deeper as Diop creates a unique movie that blends horror and romance elements into a truly unsettling and beautifully sad narrative about a young Senegalese woman and her lover who passes as he tries to sail to Spain as a refugee. While the movie is not necessarily heavy on the horror elements, Diop understands an important and often underutilized rule of horror–that sometimes, less is more. I found Atlantics a fascinating movie about a culture that I admittedly am rather ignorant of and global issues that I am in woeful need of further education about. However, the movie never comes across as preachy; rather, Diop uses the setting to further convey the tragedy that is so often overlooked in horror movies. Atlantics is one of the first horror films in a long time that has made me really feel connected to the characters within the story, and this is all the more impressive considering the cross-cultural aspect of the movie. I for one am eager to see what else this promising young director has in store for the industry in the coming years. If horror needs anything right now, it’s nuance and new perspectives, and Diop’s Atlantics offers both in a beautifully artistic way.
