SOUTH AFRICAN SPOOK HUNTER

Stars: Matt van Niftrik, Taryn Kay, Ashley Winter, Ella Kean, Paul Dewdney, Daniel Brace, Valentine Landeg, Daniel Rands and Lamin Tamba.
Writers/directors: Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray and Daniel Rands.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Peter Venkman-meets-David Brent in Matty Vans, the plumber/spirit sleuth whose ignominious misadventures fighting paranormal activity in middle-class London are captured in the occasionally riotous mock-doc, South African Spook Hunter. Collaborators Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray and Daniel Rands nail the comic timing and display the genre knowledge needed to pull off this kind of pitch-perfect takedown of those naff supernatural ‘reality’ shows. 

Likable far beyond what any South African millennial ginger deserves to be, Vans is the creation of actor/comic Matt van Niftrik, who works with MacCorgarry’s and Rand’s structured narrative then improvises the hell out of the setting and dialogue. An everyman nobody who struggles in vain to capture evidence of the afterlife (“I thought it was a spirit life light, but it was a girl whose friend was taking a wee behind a tree.”), Matty Vans is a great comic creation; van Niftrik plays both big and small for the laughs, which come unexpectedly and often.

Vans rents a doco crew - cameraman Jono (co-director Rands) and soundman Gary (Valentine Landeg) - who are growing weary of following his enthusiastic but dead-end dives into the netherworld. When suburban housewife Caroline Damon-Murray (Taryn Kay) contacts him with images of possible poltergeist intrusion impacting daughters Paige (Ella Kean) and Amber (Ashley Winter), Matty senses he is onto the case of his wannabe career. Finally, he’ll be spoken of in the same sentence as his media hero, psychic smoothie and the host of ‘Enter Gomorrah’, Danny Gomorrah (Daniel Brace).

Things start to go awry after Vans and his crew move into the Damon-Murray residence. All evidence points to a hoax, with Vans the last to cotton on, but his interactions with the family are ceaselessly funny and his to-camera moments reveal the well-intentioned ambition and integrity in his heart. The twist isn’t that hard to see coming, but the feel-good factor remains high and those seeking a smattering of chills will be satisfied.

Supporting van Niftrik’s character work are MacCorgarry and Rands skill at creating mirth in the detail; their hero’s obsession with The Bourne Identity pays off with a big giggle, and his constant use of the insult ‘worm…’ (a South African colloquialism, we guess) proves exponentially hilarious.

Delivering a mockumentary so consistently funny is no easy feat; it’s why the films of Christopher Guest (Best in Show, 2000; A Mighty Wind, 2003) are spoken of so highly. With its engaging comic lead and a directing team finding a rich vein of the ridiculous to satirise, South African Spook Hunter spinal-taps the supernatural with a gleeful giddiness.