MovieChat Forums > Dust Devil (1993) Discussion > Info on real-life Dust Devil

Info on real-life Dust Devil



Dust Devil according to director Richard Stanley was loosely based on a genuine series of murders that occured in the 10th year of a 10 year drought in the region.

Police pursued and killed the primary suspect, whose body was so destroyed in the shoot-out it couldn't be identified. Nevertheless the killings stopped.

Does anyone know if this has any basis in fact?

I have searched a few Namibian Newspaper archives and found nothing relevant.

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I haven't heard anything about these murders, but I do remember something from an interview with Richard Stanley at the time the film came out. He claimed that he had actually seen a shapeshifter for real, and the one in the film is an accurate depiction.

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Well, I don't know myself but I tend to think that psycho's in 3rd world's generally go for long periods of time unscathed and I don't think you'd find something like that in certain newspapers. Perhaps in this case it was best to forget.
That's interesting none the less but then I remember hearing or reading that TCM was based off of real life events that had happened in a deep part of TX during the late 60's along with the grave robbery, mutilations and stuff.
But now they're saying it was loosely based off of Ed Gein.
Point is, you ain't crazy but it's people who say things to sell things.

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just FYI, Stanley has said that there was another movie based on the killings, Windprints (1990), but I don't think that one has ever been released on video in the U.S.

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I've been curious about the possibility of the movie being based (loosely) on a true serial killer. I have posted on the IMDB Windprints (1990) post to see if anyone there might know of this. I'll let you know what I hear!

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It was based on a serial killer but not in the elaborate murder style of the "Dust Devil".

Even Windtalkers approaches the nagtloper from a more social dynamic approach.

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I have looked for information regarding the Nhadiep. But no luck on the actually murders. I have found the other movie people mentioned. To be honest I wish I could find more on the Nambian legends.
Uwe Boll is a man apart from his subpar horror ilk - he is more genuinely terrible than they are.

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This is an interesting thread and it reminds me of the research i mounted into the "true story" of the 80's Ron Howard film Bitter Harvest where farmers discovered someone was poisoning the food chain. A tristate area plague that in the end w/ authorities dragging their feet, forced the farmers to destroy their entire livestocks and doze them into mass graves to save the nation from basically a "flipper baby" epidemic.

ANYHOW, there is seriously no information on the case and i only found one reviewer of the long out of print film who said someone basically did an amazing job of covering the events up that they remembered well. A story that made the Mad Cow scare look tame in comparison.

Sorry to sidetrack here, but i'd also like some info on that movie attempt/Hindu-Kush business Stanley talks about in the special features, where allegedly certain dark remote areas of the region are known to have villages full of non-human "wolf" creatures wearing human skin. Creatures that scare the natives much worse than "scud missiles" armed "Russians" or occupying "American" troops. What in the hell was the name of that attempted/failed film, and is there any more information on it?
Real, fantastical, whatever. That story is extremely intriguing.

"Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your credit rating."

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http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Steytlerville-monster-strikes-again-20110425

i was looking up south african shapeshifters and found this article. if you google south african shapeshifters their are articles about them. as for serial killers, well their are plenty that were going on in certain parts of south africa. the dust devil character was also base on another movie called windprints.

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Thanks for the posting the link to the article. Crazy, amazing.

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