Dust Devil (1992) – Richard Stanley was, briefly, one of those insane visionary directors who could have been the next Ken Russell or David Lynch. Instead, he flamed out on his remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau and faded away into a haze of reefer smoke and Miramax-mandated re-edits. But before he disappeared, he turned in two classic movies, Hardware, a homemade, hard sci fi horror film about a killer robot (with Iggy Pop in a cameo role, and one of the best “guy on acid” scenes I’ve seen in a movie), and Dust Devil, a South African-set film about a serial killer who might also happen to be a demon from hell. The killer crosses, and recrosses, paths with a woman on the run from her abusive husband, and a cop whose family has fallen apart leaving him all alone to go out on the road and get obsessed with his suspect. Miramax slashed the film to shreds, and it died like a dog on release, but the version on Netflix is Stanley’s preferred edit and it’s compelling as hell. Uneven, and with so-so acting, it contains a pure visionary energy that gives it an occult charge, with its three puny lead characters lost in a sea of sand, and one eye-blasting setpiece after another slipping past the lens. Imagine Brian De Palma on peyote directing a remake of The Hitcher set in South Africa and you’ve just about nailed it. Perfect? No. Unique? Absolutely. (Watch it!)
