Kandisha is a French horror movie based on a Moroccan legend. This was released in 2020 on Shudder and is not to be confused with the movie with the same title released in 2008. The foundation of both movies is the same, but I wasn’t able to find the older one readily on streaming.

The legend is about a demon/woman who, when summoned, will avenge a wrongdoing of the one who summoned her. But the movie doesn’t start there, it simply starts with 3 girls (Morjana, Amelie, and Bintou) who enjoy doing spray paint graffiti, and the primary place they do it is a building scheduled for demolition. After finishing the incredibly detailed piece they are doing in homage to Morjana’s parents, they find a bit of wall tearing away and it reveals the name Kandisha. Morjana knows the story and explains it to them. They joke about it and then set off to return home with Morjana splitting off towards her home first. Then Bintou and Amelie split up as well. We follow Amelie as she rounds a corner and is ambushed by her ex that can’t accept that she doesn’t want to be with him anymore. He then beats her unconscious and takes her to a secluded place where he intends to rape her. She comes to enough to fight him off and escape. 

When she gets home, she hides in the bathroom and paints a pentagram on the shower wall with her own blood as she chants the name of Kandisha.

There were some early allusions to CandyMan with the derelict building and the prevalence of graffiti. And even the girls chanting the name Kandisha repeatedly. I don’t think this is a bad thing, if you are going to mimic a creative work and you select something from Clive Barker, then you are off to a good start with a wonderfully scary foundation.

Having said that, this movie starts off painfully slow. To the point where I feel like giving it two different ratings. The first 45 minutes or so is rather slow and uninteresting. The Kandisha creature is simply a darkly shrouded figure that kills without much to interest the viewer. As a matter of fact, the first kill isn’t even done by Kandisha. She is chasing the ex boyfriend and he gets hit by a car. After that men who are friends of the 3 girls begin to quickly get killed off by Kandisha. Now I said I was going to split this rating, and I give the first half about a 4, and that may be generous because putting me in the mind of Clive Barker always helps make something more interesting to me. 

As Kandisha kills, she begins changing, becoming more monstrous. And that is pretty cool. Watching her change was subtle at first and then became more dramatic. The girls do enlist the aid of an Imam to try and reverse the invocation. An Imam who is more specifically an exorcist that has been excommunicated. Through him they find out more about Kandisha and engage in a ritual meant to banish her. A terrifying ordeal for all those involved, and one that ultimately fails as another victim is claimed.

There is a little math error that I understand but it wasn’t clearly explained. Kandisha will kill 6 before leaving. A conversation is had about that where they state there are two more deaths needed before she will leave them alone, but at this point 5 have died. The clarification is that Kandisha killing the ex was part of the summoning pact with her, and after that there are 6 lives that need to be claimed. So it makes sense, but as more die, the ones Kandisha targets become closer and more meaningful to the 3 girls.

Unfortunately for me, the main girl in this, Amelie, was someone that I just found I didn’t really care about. In the early part where she is fighting against her ex who is trying to rape her, yeah I was rooting for her to jack him up and get away. But as she understands what is happening to her friends, she seems to get jaded. This is all her fault, she did summon Kandisha. And when the ramifications hit closer to home for the other two girls, there is visibly a break in their friendship. It reminded me of a trope I hate. When you have a character who is trying to accomplish something dangerous and a group of people decide to help them only to wind up sacrificing themselves for that other character. In recent years when I see this I find myself looking at the main character and saying “Why do you think your goal is worth the lives of the six people who died to help you achieve that. You selfish jackass.” (And then the cat realizes I’m not talking to him and goes back to sleep.) This is a bit different, because Amelie didn’t realize the ramifications of summoning Kandisha, nor did she actually expect it to work. So the deaths that occur (beyond her ex) aren’t fully her fault. 

Something I skipped over was the rules of Kandisha. The Imam said there were 2 ways to stop her. The one they tried (and thought worked) was banishing her using the Seal of Solomon. Which was cool. I liked that scene a lot. And I would say that was around the time the movie shifted to the better half. The second method is kept secret from them until later, because it is deemed unthinkable. The one who invoked Kandisha needs to sacrifice herself. This results in breaking the curse of Kandisha and not only stopping the killing, but freeing the soul of Kandisha. But…. It also means that Amelie will take her place and become Kandisha. So not exactly a Plan A. And it is a method that has diminishing returns. As more are killed by Kandisha, the amount of people saved becomes smaller. It’s like the Trolley Problem in a way. If you had all the knowledge at the beginning that Kandisha will kill these specific 6 people and you can save them by sacrificing yourself, that would be one thing. But learning the rule after 3 of the 6 have died, it becomes more questionable. And then if you wait until the moment where the next (and final) death is closest to you, then your sacrifice is very selfish. You allowed 2 more to die and THEN you decide to act. A very modified Trolley Problem, but I like the thinkiness of it. 

And the second half of the movie I think is an easy 8 for me, maybe even pushing into 9 territory. But when you balance that with the first half it comes in somewhere around 6-7. Think I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and settle on 7. They do leave us with a bit of a cliffhanger leading to a sequel, but there has been absolutely no buzz about a plan to do one.