Maitland Favorites: Dust Devil: The Final Cut

Latest in an occasional series recommending lesser-known, kick-you-in-the-gut classics

I have loved Dust Devil since I first saw it in the 87-minute 1995 U.S. theatrical release. Even cut to hell — which, of course, I didn’t know at the time — it was mesmerizing, a mix of folklore, high-octane road movie, supernatural thriller and female-centric psychological drama rooted in the dark cloud of suicidal ideation. All that having been said, be assured Dust Devil is a balls-to-the-wall horror movie — and writer-director Richard Stanley juggles a lot of those balls to keep Dust Devil spinning. The film, first released in England in 1992, has itself been juggled through hapless distributors worldwide and multiple cuts and running times — all culminating in this Final Cut, a 108-minute release that anchors a five-DVD collection released in 2005 and containing an additional 115-minute workprint, more than five hours of filmmaker commentary, home movies from the set and just a whole lot more.

In South Africa, unhappy Johannesburg housewife Wendy Robinson (Chelsea Field) has just left her irrationally jealous husband Mark (Rufus Swart) after he baselessly accused her one time too many of cheating on him. Her destination: Namibia, almost 800 miles away and most of it across desert, but it’s where the land finally meets the Atlantic Ocean. Having lived her entire life in heat and dust, she wants to see water at its most magnificent.