Savaged

Zoe is deaf and driving across the country to join her fiancé. In the desert she is attacked by a group of men and left for dead. An old Apache shaman living in the area finds her and tries to save her; the ceremony works, but not as intended. The spirit of an Apache warrior dead for centuries enters her body. Michael S. Ojeda writes and directs. Amanda Adrienne plays Zoe. The film joins two genres. On one side the seventies revenge template, on the other body horror; the woman is steadily decomposing and the film does not conceal it. That combination is also what got it criticised. The idea of the Apache spirit was called a use of Native culture as a horror device, and the shaman was judged a cliché. Zoe's deafness is functional in the narrative: she cannot speak, cannot shout, cannot ask for help, and the film uses the constraint as both tension and character. It was made cheaply and went straight to digital distribution, screening at genre festivals and finding a limited audience. Who it is for: viewers who like independent horror and revenge films. Who it is not for: sexual violence and torture are shown directly, the use of Native culture is troubling, and the technical quality is poor.