I have often said that my fondness for horror partly comes from the genre’s inclusiveness. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are or how much money you have- if you have the talent, will and the right idea, you can make a successful horror film.

Jean Luc Herbulot’s low-budget action/crime thriller/horror hybrid Saloum is an excellent example. Having been shot mostly in Senegal, Saloum does not come from a part of the world that has made significant contributions to the horror genre. But then, the audience to see films or television content that is unapologetically willing to place the camera in underrepresented communities has never been so high. And this might be exactly what Herbulot was banking on when he co-wrote and directed his crime/ horror hybrid.

Saloum starts with an image of a boy holding an oversized handgun while walking knee deep in water. As we follow the boy, a voiceover speaks cryptically about revenge. It’s an image that will get revisited again later in the film.

Next, we are moved to 2003 at the time of the Guinea-Bissau coup d’état. A legendary trio of mercenaries called the Bangui’s Hyenas have been hired to extract a Mexican drug lord and get him safely to Dakar. After some gun fire, the Hyenas are successful in getting the drug lord into the air on their small plane, but a fuel leak forces the group to make an emergency landing along the banks of the Saloum River in the region of Sine-Saloum.

The beginning act of Saloum has the flare of a fast-paced heist film. Herbulot does a good job introducing us to all of the members of Hyenas. Rafa (Roger Sallah) is the straight-taking muscle who presents himself as having few moral scruples. Minuit (Mentor Ba) dabbles in mysticism and has a fondness for sleeping powders. And Chaka (Yann Gael) is the group’s intelligent, smooth-talking leader whose main vices include a fear of water and PTSD related nightmares. The group has developed trust after years of working together, however, Chaka’s curious insistence that they lay low at a nearby vacation resort until they get “fuel and resin” makes Rafa and Minuit nervous. Then, after Chaka shows he is familiar with the resort’s proprietor, Felex, they start to suspect Chaka of having ulterior motives.

Online, I’ve seen people refer to Herbulot as the Congolese Taranto, which is not an inaccurate assessment of the two dialogue-heavy, character building dining scenes at Felix’s resort. In these scenes, the mercenaries, pretending to be gold miners, interact with Felix and his other guests, including a deaf-mute woman named Awa and a couple of no-longer-dating artists. During these scenes, Herbulot’s writing is beautifully layered with social biases, conversations within conversations and disguised motivations. It is, honestly, some of the best writing I’ve seen in a movie this year and the acting from everyone, particularly Gael, is terrific.

But the truth is that Herbulot’s influences are actually quite broad. Saloum is a genre bender and it pulls from multiple sources. Together, the Hyenas have the iconic archetypal feel of the anti-heroes in Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. Then there is a revenge plot that, with the help of regional folklore, reaches epic proportions. But Saloum is also billed as a horror, and by the time it reaches its third act, it becomes a pure horror-action film with impressive creature designs and characters that, because Herbulot put in the work, you actually root for. I won’t lie; I usually want everyone to die by the end of a horror film, but Saloum made me long for sequel adventures starring the Bangui’s Hyenas. (I won’t spoil whether or not l might ever get my wish.)

Just don’t go into Saloum thinking it is going to handhold you through its social subtext…nor should it have to. Saloum is littered with references about child soldiers, colonial exploitation and talk of police and political corruption. I have read comments by people who said they sometimes felt lost because of the inclusion of real African problems into the dialogue and parts of the plot- but really, it is not anything a quick Google-search couldn’t help them with. In fact, I find it horrifically Eurocentric to make grievances about films that come from different parts of the world for not catering to Western ignorance…cause you know, we all need more exposition in films to tell us about things some of us have neglected to learn about.

Did I mention that Saloum is only an hour and twenty minutes long? Well it is, if you don’t count the credits. Seriously, it is absolutely remarkable how much story this film covers while never feeling overly rushed. As a director, Herbulot understands how to make each second of his film count. In fact, I recommend watching Saloum a second time because it is hard to appreciate all of the nuances of the story in one watch. So much gets communicated in this movie with just a glance.  

By mixing familiar genres with solid filmmaking techniques and a great script, Herbulot tells a uniquely Senegalese story that is also accessible to Western audiences. Saloum’s core themes of revenge and brotherhood are universal, but its location and inclusion of local issues and folklore is all Senegal. This is a highly rewatchable film that is a masterclass in pacing and a milestone in African horror cinema.

Herbulot’s crime-horror-revenge-thriller made noise when it hit the festival circuit. Eventually, it got picked up by the horror streaming platform Shudder as an exclusive- which makes sense since it is going to end up on most best horrors of 2022 lists. If you get the chance, don’t pass on your chance to see it. Saloum is an absolute blast.