Dachra: Tunisian filmmaker Abdelhamid Bouchnak's chilling tale of witchcraft in Tunisia inspired by true events

Dachra: Curse of the Witch might be billed as Tunisia's first horror film, but its scary movie influences are global and will certainly be a draw for Arabs and horror aficionados alike who might not have caught it upon its initial release in 2018.

The feature debut of Tunisian filmmaker Abdelhamid Bouchnak, now being streamed on Arrow, Dachra's similarities with The Blair Witch Project are undeniable. As with the 1999 American film, it claims to be based on true events and follows a trio of student journalists investigating an urban legend in a wood, minus the found footage conceit.

Still, Abdelhamid manages to weave this homage with the unsaturated colours of Hideo Nakata's supernatural horror Ringu, the cannibalistic gore of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes and even the iconic red jacket from Nicolas Roeg's British thriller Don't Look Now, among others, into a patchwork quilt of horror that proves chilling on its merit.

A story that revels so much in grotesqueness that it serves as a refreshing, albeit grisly, counterpoint to the straight social realism so prevalent in contemporary North African cinema.

It opens disturbingly with the visceral sound design amping up the horror and setting the dark, atmospheric tone for the rest of the film.

Ominous white noise builds as a shaky camera follows a faceless man in the dark of a wood. He's wearing a bloody apron and sharpening a knife, ready to slice the neck of a child. "He has the key in his eye," says another man holding the pale boy down before the intimidating blade is held close to his neck.

Abdelhamid doesn't show the violent act because he doesn't need to. The fleshy sound of metal cutting through skin, followed by the dramatic flooding of blood over grey stone, is enough to give you goosebumps; a statement of the film's savage intent before the core trio has even been introduced.

These student journalists are an unruly bunch. After being set the task of finding an exclusive news piece — "and please, nothing on the Revolution," their professor begs — Yassmine (Yasmine Dimassi), Walid (Aziz Jebali) and Bilel (Bilel Slatnia) bandy about ideas in between insults and sniping.

The actors' propensity for shouting over one another gets a tad overbearing, but mostly it adds a light touch of hubris as the film slinks into darker territory.

The trio settle on investigating the hushed rumours of a deranged woman being held at a psychiatrist's facility after surviving a cannibalistic attack 20 years earlier. They interview a swaggering doctor at the psychiatric facility, and later, Mongia (Hela Ayed), the survivor, who is being kept hidden in chains in the shadow of a basement prison.

It's a hauntingly tense set-up, with cinematographer Hatem Nechi framing Yassmine in low light and a decrepit-looking Mongia in unnerving shade. Hatem plays around with perspective throughout the film, from wide angles to extreme close-ups that add an eerie insecurity to their journalistic quest.

Yassmine, however, is the key player. Yasmine Dimassi offers a forceful performance, her face flitting between confidence and despair as her trauma bubbles to the surface. She is haunted by visions of a dark witch stalking her in the waking hours as much as at night.

There's a freaky library scene straight out of Ghostbusters and a jumpy nightmare sequence where her mortician grandfather (Bahri Rahali) tries to eat her. He, too, experiences supernatural visions, and the film breadcrumbs their family secrets towards a climactic ending once the trio stumble upon the eponymous rural village.

Dilapidated cement buildings are trimmed with sickly-looking meat hanging from rope, a feral child runs around, and creepy women silently operate under the command of a suspiciously friendly guy called Saber. He gets right up in the faces of these journalists, delivering uncomfortably jovial sentiments, intensifying the unease of his eager hospitality.

They want to leave, Saber makes excuses for them to stay the night (and sit for a stomach-churning banquet), resulting in a palpable final act of grim revelations and terrifying twists that seal their ill-fate.

According to an end title card, "In North Africa, hundreds of children are victims of acts of witchcraft", and Buochnak employs that vague but harrowing concept to serve up a queasily atmospheric account of life, death and the consumptive horror of survival.

Hanna Flint is a British-Tunisian critic, broadcaster and author of Strong Female Character: What Movies Teach Us. Her reviews, interviews and features have appeared in GQ, the Guardian, Elle, Town & Country, Mashable, Radio Times, MTV, Time Out, The New Arab, Empire, BBC Culture and elsewhere. Follow her on Instagram: @hannainesflint