Dust Devil - The Final Cut (Limited Collector's Edition) [DVD]

Three documentaries done with extras and audio commentaries are a must. The feature film of the set also is packed with extras. Some early works related to the content. Behind the scenes. Cast interviews. Work print, director's cut. Movie soundtrack. This set rivals any Criterion set. The producer of the set is essentially interviewing Richard Stanley at the same time while the commentaries are talking place providing a unique experience. A retrospective of his work and the inner workings of his mind. Spread over 5 discs. The only other place you can get the 3 docs on this set is The Otherworld documentary, the limited Blu-ray set only on a bonus DVD, where they are shoved on one disc without the audio commentaries, which without those, is really comparing apples to oranges.

Take a spaghetti western, throw in demonic possession and locate it in modern day Namibia, and you have this film. I really could not get the spaghetti western theme out of my head the whole time I was watching it. Cinematography, music, dialogue and so on. If they had throw in Clint Eastwood and Lee van Cleef we would have been there. The demon, in a possessed human host who happens to be American (complete with cowboy boots, broad rimmed hat and over coat), seeks out those ready to die. He kills them in ritualized murders trying to gain the power to cross back over to his world. Enter Wendy who is fleeing from an abusive husband (or is she? She seemed pretty sympathetic towards the jerk). She picks demon up on her drive to the sea (no explanation as to why that is her destination). Cop is a skeptic who comes to realize what he is hunting thanks to a shaman. High Noon takes place in a ghost town keeping true to that spaghetti western theme they had going. If you kill the demon host after tricking him to step over a magic stick, you kill the demon. Without the magic stick, you become the demon's new host. Demon, Wendy and Cop have their High Noon in the ghost town with what was a predictable ending. If I had not been amused by the whole spaghetti western theme this probably would have rated 2 stars. Not a lot of action...dry acting (they were in the desert after all, although it was a dry heat)...no chills or thrills, etc.

I like this movie much more that I thought I would.It is mostly known as a B-movie with excellent filming location and well shot.Actually the movie and storyline is excellent,seeing the South African area and culture makes this a great history study.The extras are excellent,my favorite is the Otto Rahn documentary,soundtrack is not available on any streaming service.The included booklets are well done as well.

If ever a movie suffered through production hell and studio interference, it was Stanley's Dust Devil. Brilliantly filmed in Namibia and South Africa, many of the landscape shots are truly breathtaking, the resulting film was edited by studio forces in such a way as to remove all menace, coherence and soul. But this edition is everything restored, the final director's cut. Stanley is as much a visionary as a director, much in the way of Terry Gilliam, a trait that often brings production headaches that studio suits disdain. Immersed in myth (the central figure embodies the nameless, drifting stranger acting outside of social expectations) and local, mystical beliefs, Stanley weaves a chilling tale much deeper than the base acting on the screen. The Devil preys on persons who have given up on life- he can "smell" it, is drawn to it- and he acts in a dimension of sorts that defies concepts of time or reality. It is a film that demands thinking, demands work on the part of the viewer, and is all the more satisfying for it.

A wayward, shape-shifting demon (Robert John Burke) does what he must to escape our material plane. What does this require? Why, serial-murder of course! Not just any kind of killing however. No, The Dust Devil must use his victims in archane rituals, where blood-letting (along w/ other body fluids) has dark, secret power. To him, we are fleshly keys to help him unlock a portal to the spiritual realm. Enter Wendy (Chelsea Field), a woman who is also trying to escape something. In her case, it's her marriage, and the abuse that came w/ it. Her path will intersect with the Dust Devil's trajectory in the Namibian town of Bethany. Meanwhile, a cop named Ben (Zakes Mokae) is trying his best to do two things. One is to track down the infamous serial-killer, the other is to endure life without his long lost wife and son. These three beings- the demon, the woman, the man -will meet in a desert ghost-town in order to fulfill their destinies. DUST DEVIL is an outrageously overlooked horror masterpiece. I never tire of watching it, and highly recommend it. Richard Stanley (Hardware) has come up with a truly original and engrossing tale of life, death, and the supernatural, all played out in the barren African wastes left by generations of war. The landscape is captured beautifully, making Africa seem more like the planet Mars than any earthly environment. DUST DEVIL should be owned by all horror maniacs!This one is in my top five...

Finally, we get to see Director Richard Stanley's beautiful director's cut version of Dust Devil (1992) on DVD. I bought this edition for my birthday in 2013 and I was immediately astonished by the unforgettable imagery and intrigued by the legend of the "Vanishing Hitchhiker" that I was learning of for the first time. Simon Boswell's score is a treat to listen to and be reminded of lilting desert winds and spaghetti westerns. The cinematography by Steven Chivers is so good that it will probably make anyone fall in love with the desert. All of the actors and actresses are excellent, including William Hootkins (RIP), who chameleon-like effortlessly shines in a small but vital role, supplying a very good Afrikaner accent that reminds the viewer just how good an actor he was. I hope that more horror fans get to witness this unforgettable cinematic experience since The Color Out Of Space (2019) was recently released to wide acclaim and that we get to see many more films from Director Richard Stanley.

i am really so very happy that after 14 years when i first heard about a more fuller version of this great and haunting not to mention atmospheric as well film that i now own it along with the Michael Mann film The Keep and i have more reason now to remember just how brilliant Richard Stanley was and still is i hope in the near future that he can finally make The island of Doctor Moreau the way he originally intended such a great and well put together package.

With beautiful, sweeping scenery and theme music that is both powerful, emotive and eerie, Dust Devil tells the tale of a demon on the dusty roads of Namibia, making his way between desolate dying towns and feeding off the anguish and suffering of their inhabitants.Brutally murderous, he leaves behind him pieces of body, rooms drenched in blood, and occult symbols painted using it.Now he has sensed the despair of an English girl who has walked out on her husband and has hit the road; her husband is out searching for her. The dust devil is also on her trail, however she is proving a more elusive prey than his usual victims.Meanwhile on *his* trail is a cop investigating the ritual murders. With rationality persuading him to find the culprit one way, and the native African culture of magic and witchdoctors and pressure from a shaman persuading him to use other forces, it's a game the results of which will depend on who catches up with who first.This is a powerfully atmospheric film, carried by the cinematography and the film score and its rooting in African legend and culture. For a viewer like myself not used to images of backwoods desert Namibia, it looks sometimes like it's set in the Dust Bowl of 1930's America, with the ever present dust storms, vintage vehicles, and steam trains pulling in to deserted hick-town stations.Let down only very slightly by some occasionally stilted acting (even the dust devil himself is perhaps not as evilly eerie as he could have been), overall an enjoyable experience.

Dust Devil is an unusual thriller with erotic undertones. "Here is no good or evil, only spirit and matter. Only movement toward the light and away from it." Not bad but not a classic.

This is an amazing film, hampered only by some very amateur acting. Some imaginative and expressively seductive use of filters and lighting give it a reality that feels like a drug-induced spirit journey. The director commentary adds so much more to the symbolism, if you have the time give it a listen. The film exists in a number of different versions of varying lengths. Mine was the Optimum release, running 104 mins.