Zalava (2021)
Zalava is an Iranian horror drama movie that came out in 2021 in the languages of kurdish and persian.
How I watched: Rental on Amazon Prime Video
For the short of it: Guy searches for answers that a village claims there is a demon amongst them.
The long of it?
You know, I usually like to stick to watching movies that are either free or a part of the handful of streaming services I already pay for (which is a lot, not gonna lie). It almost feels like it defeats the purpose of spending $$$ on a movie when I have so many options at my disposal. Truth be known, some foreign movies are just simply not accessible to the modern American such as myself. The legit way. However, this is an exception. One of the few movies I spent money on. I was just in the mood for a good Iranian movie. Feels like it's been way too long.
So here I am.
Zalava is a film about this man named Masoud Ahmadi who is the gendarmarie (a fancy term for rural police) for a village that is Zalava in the late 1970s. The people residing there have a history of being hella superstitious as their roots originated from gypsies who settled in the area. In an effort to tell the residents to chill their balls, he takes away all of their guns to prevent them from killing each other from mass hysteria.
As in, the hysteria of thinking just any Tom, Dick and Harry could potentially be the next person possessed by a demon. This obviously doesn't go over too well with them which leaves a woman dead as she was believed to be possessed and ended up falling to her death as her dad was intending to "cure" her. With ze knife.
Everyone banded together and I guess made a HR complaint (or whatever higher form of authority) against Masoud and now my dude is being dethroned from his position at an incoming date. He uses what little time he has left to travel back to Zalava to finally investigate the claims of this demon that seems to be all the talk about. Oh and and he gives their guns back.
Upon arrival, Masoud Ahmadi comes face to face with the revered exorcist named Armardan and he has a front row seat for the latest exorcism. By that I mean standing outside the house of the possessed person as Armardan doesn't allow anyone else while the big 'ol action is going on. When all is said and done Masoud determines that this Armardan fellow is a fraud and arrests him.
Shit goes cray cray from there.
Armardan claims he can trap demons in glass bottles and uh, the bottle is not where it is supposed to be. Ruh Roh.
The thing about this movie, Zavala, is that I admire the flawless progression of events. If you must know, this is indeed a slow burner so don't expect jump scares or excessive gore. Sorry bruh. This movie actually has a deeper message to it than meets the eye but I'm sure you are smart enough to see where I'm going at here to figure what exactly that entails. Would be totally great if you did check out this movie because the last 20 minutes is just 😱
All in all, Zalava is far from a new concept but at the same time, I love how this movie presented it. I shit you not, it almost made me feel like it was. Or maybe I am just not used to Iranian movies. BUT HEY! An enjoyable watch, I tells ya.
I totally do love the take of demons in glass bottles, it heavily reminds me of the Netflix show, Diablero where this is a theme in the background. I recapped this show on my TV blog but I firstly recommend you watch it IRL anyway.
Now that I mention it, this movie in particular doesn't seem to have streaming rights all I can speak for is the US because that's where I live. I don't want to illegally pirate but what I did end up doing is just coughing up $1.99 to rent it on Amazon Prime Video. While it may not be available On Demand, I'm hella grateful I can at least support Iranian cinema.
That would totally explain why I see very little YouTube videos and movie reviews about this movie. If you search up something like X and Pearl (2022), there's like a million reviews and discussions on social media due to obvious reasons (A-list scream queens and all that jazz).
To my delight, the little reviews I did check out is that the general consensus actually LOVES this movie. Lots of glowing reviews. I always like to read the negative ones too because sometimes they do bring up fair points even if I disagree with their rating. As of this post it currently has 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Coolio.
If you have a few bucks to spend, I'd totally recommend you to rent this movie. It wasn't a try hard to scare ya and it was not a goofy over the top scare flick. This is just in general a well balanced movie that doesn't even have your corny over the top villain which always seems to irk me in American movies. Anyway, rent the movie. Just do it!
With that being said, what is my verdict?
scared of glass bottles 4 evahhh
If you are interested in watching Zalava then please CLICK HERE to see which streaming services you can watch it on via the free streaming guide app, JUSTWATCH!
