There’s a recurring trend in horror cinema, especially indie horror, of filmmakers eliciting tension and fear almost exclusively through disorienting camera angles and gargling sounds. While effective sound design and eerie camerawork has always been a part of what makes horror cinema the purveyor of our deepest fears, it seems that the over-reliance on these two elements has funneled out the scares for lead-ups with no payoff. Jaco Bouwer’sGaia embodies these tropes with the huff and puff of a scary movie and the pseudo-intelligence of a high-minded thriller, but there’s little bite.

Gaia reminds of Lars von Trier’s Anti-Christ, and not just because both movies feature a strange sex scene by a creepy tree. In each film, the metaphorical narratives deal with the consistent fight between man, woman and nature. While von Trier’s film is rooted in problematic elements of misogyny stemming from his personal life that guide its rather difficult and issue-laden philosophy, Gaia’s central theme is more straightforward — “humans are killing Mother Earth, and she’s pissed.”

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There are many ways that Gaia’s concepts can be expounded into more interesting discussions, yet Bouwer is fine with maintaining a simplistic if metaphorically informed tale about Mother Nature’s revenge. A park ranger named Gabi (Monique Rockman) stumbles upon a father and son — Barend (Carel Nel) and Stefan (Alex van Dyk), respectively — who live in the jungle and hold a deep secret about something growing in the soil. Barend tells of his “God” who lives in the earth, the greatest organism on the planet and something which existed long before man. He gives offerings of flesh and blood to the organism through a large sentient tree, and there are also humanoid mushroom plants that occasionally attack the trio. 

None of this is particularly scary but rather peculiar, with the mystery of the organism’s true identity propelling the intrigue. Bouwer tries to bring the frights with creepy groans and some rotating camera shots that are supposed to invoke how everything is being turned upside down. He also includes body horror featuring mushrooms growing on human limbs, along with dreams sequences that end with a crescendo of string music and a character waking up and panting. It’s all been done a million times before, and there’s nothing new in Gaia to differentiate it from past horror films.

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Gaia’s performances are the strongest aspect of the film, with Rockman standing out as the best. What little terror the movie evokes comes from her dreary eyes and solemn looks, which seem to stand in for the subconscious knowledge and fears of the human race knowing that it is destroying itself by virtue of destroying the planet. This is rich and fertile soil for a tense movie, and one wishes that Bouwer’s approach tapped more into this innate fear rather than chasing cheap jump-scares. Gaia is the type of movie where an uneasy feeling would elevate the horror so much more.

Soham Gadre (@SohamGadre) is a writer/filmmaker based in Washington, D.C. He has contributed to publications such as Bustle, Frameland and Film Inquiry. Soham is currently in production for his first short film. All of his film and writing work can be found at extrasensoryfilms.com.