We Intend To Cause Havoc is an understated documentary about the little known but highly influential Zamrock music scene of Zambia in the 1970s and the group who were the nation’s equivalent of The Rolling Stones: Witch.

After the reissue of their albums in 2010, Witch (an acronym of We Intend To Cause Havoc) found a new audience; among them, the filmmaker Gio Arlotta (who has these reissues to thanks for his discovery of the band). In this documentary, Arlotta (who directed the film) travels to Zambia with two young Dutch musicians in tow in a bid to track down the two surviving members. Arlotta wants to learn more about Witch, Zambia’s music history, learn about their music, get a greater sense of who the band were, and why they disappeared. Witch’s music still sounds fresh and prescient today; the bluesy hooks, psychedelic riffs and garage rock energy instantly catchy and make for instant earworms.

The lack of original footage of the band is one of the few parts of the documentary’s downfall, although what is left is utilised to its most total effect. However, in place of this, we do get to see some previously unseen footage of a James Brown concert, which is superbly preserved and wonderful to see. Some may say the documentary relies on a tried and tested formula like that used in 2012’s highly successful Searching for Sugar Man (but without the latter’s polish); however, it works here in many ways. There are a scrappiness to the film and a bristling energy thanks to the music and the boundless energy of frontman Emanyeo “Jagari” Chanda, Zambia’s answer to Mick Jagger. Now a gemstone miner who does backbreaking work to support his family, Chanda takes to the stage after a forty-year hiatus like no time has passed, a born frontman with energy to rival those inspired by him his music. Chanda’s pure natural charisma, combined with fellow Zamrock musician Victor Kasoma, the Zambian Jimmy Hendrix, is terrific and their repartee genuine. Visits to music studios and musician’s homes and lives make for endlessly fascinating viewing, but there’s a little too much on the director’s involvement in the film, rather than the subject’s themselves.

There is a bittersweet tone that lingers throughout the film; the belief that Zamrock should be much better known. “It can’t just end here,” says Chanda. “This is the new beginning.” And if viewers glean anything from We Intend To Cause Havoc (W.I.T.C.H.), hopefully it will be.

Some films are incredibly unsettling, not because they are scary per se, but because they feel so real; they get under your skin because they are rooted in realism and truth. And let’s be honest; the world is a scary place, as demonstrated in Stalker.

On his first night in Los Angeles, Andy (Vincent Van Horn) meets Sam (Christine Ko) in a bar. Vulnerable from a long-term break-up, Andy has the drive to start fresh in a new city but is still dwelling on the past. Nonetheless, he and Sam hit it off, and at the end of the night, they share a ride back to her place. Their driver is the unnerving Roger (Michael Lee Joplin), who forms a stalker-like attachment to Andy that becomes extremely difficult to shake off. Throughout the film, Roger inserts and infiltrates every aspect of Andy’s life — first by ‘running into Andy at a coffee shop the following day where he forces his number on him with the guise of introducing him to the city, and then never allowing Andy a moment to himself. As Roger attempts to drive a wedge between Andy’s burgeoning relationship with Sam, his motifs become darker, more sinister and more troubling. 

Let me tell the animal lovers that Andy’s sweet dog, Juicebox, is spared any harm in this film (thank goodness; because of the way things were going, I was apprehensive). Instead, the movie plays on the intense psychological mind games people can turn the information you reveal freely to them against you, with disastrous consequences. 

Director Tyler Savage weaves his tight script with some beautiful location shots of the city. Savage smartly plays into the darker angle of Los Angeles history, the flip side to a town known for its movie star golden glamour, by zoning in on stories of newcomers who have become lost in this city where they are striving to be seen. This visibility Andy is seeking is his downfall, as he becomes an easy target, as Savage shows how easy is it for newcomers to cities to be duped by the kindness of strangers when they are lonely and desperate to fit into their new place. While Andy is not necessarily a good person (for reasons that will become clear), he does possess a vulnerability and realism, and we are sympathetic to his plight (while tearing our hair out at his mistakes to ward off Roger). All of this serves to make the film’s tense ending even more affecting.

Stalker reveals how dangerous social media and the internet is when we let down our guard and how easy and free we are with our information. It is a warning not to be careful of the kindness of strangers.

Stalker is out on VOD 21 May 2021.

I recently started a newsletter called Love Letters During A Nightmare about all the things I adore. Essentially it’s my musings on women, surrealism, Women Surrealists, and pop culture, usually fortnightly. If you missed it, the first post was on Dorothea Tanning, Eve Babitz, Chess, and The Queen’s Gambit. You can read it here:

Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning play chess in a picture frame. Photo: Bob Towers, Sedona, Arizona (1948).

On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.”

Happy Birthday to the brilliant and tragic Janis Joplin.

Photo by David Gahr, 1968.

“People always say, ‘But you always look so happy.’ Well that’s Botox!”

Happy Birthday to the iconic Dolly Parton.