10 Criminally Underrated Horror Movies

5. Dust Devil (1992)

A middle aged man is walking along a desert road in Namibia when a female motorist called Saarke pulls over, and takes him back to her house. He breaks her neck whilst they are having sex. In the morning, he has squiggled symbols all over Saarke's house and sets it on fire. He gets into her car and drives off. In Johannesburg, Mark accuses his wife Wendy of cheating on him and she flees to Namibia. When she arrives in Namibia, Wendy comes across the Dust Devil as the police are trying to solve the case (they find an old trailer with chopped up bodies). Wendy tries to cut her wrists in a bathroom but doesn't achieve this despite Dust Devil standing outside the door with a razor. Mark comes to Namibia and one of the shamans tell him that Wendy is with a 'nagtloeper' - a shapeshifting monster who preys on the desperate, the lonely, the lost. He gives Mark a charm to kill him. Wendy notices severed fingers within the shapeshifter's possessions. She tries to run away from him but a fierce sand storm breaks out. Mark and the cops are also on Dust Devil's case. Can they defeat Dust Devil before Wendy is snuffed out? The film really benefits from its spectacular Namibian desert setting which is simultaneously blank and bereft, but also menacing and full of magic and witchcraft. The idea of a 'Nagtloeper' - a shapeshifting creature that preys on desperate, suicidal women and takes their fingers as souvenirs - is an inventive horror villain. Particularly as he is not a human being and possesses superhuman powers. But whatever you do, if you are going to watch Dust Devil, please purchase the Director's Cut of the film and not the cut version which does a serious amount of damage to the film and makes it boring and confusing. If the Director's Cut had been released instead of the butchered version, Dust Devil would have been a highly critically regarded horror film and it would have not lapsed into the semi-obscure status it has today.