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Siembamba

  • 2017
  • 1h 26m
IMDb RATING
3.9/10
1.8K
YOUR RATING
Siembamba (2017)
Chloe is overwhelmed by the birth of her first child. The incessant crying of her baby, the growing sense of guilt and paranoia sends her into depression. With a heightened urge to protect her son, Chloe sees danger in every situation. She starts to hear voices, the humming of a childhood lullaby and sees flashes of a strange entity around her child. Convinced that the entity is real, Chloe will do everything in her power to protect her son. Is she haunted by evil or is it just the baby blues?
Play trailer1:31
1 Video
27 Photos
Horror

Postpartum mother experiences paranoia, hallucinations about a threat to her baby. Her mental state deteriorates as she tries to protect her child, straining relationships. Is she truly in d... Read allPostpartum mother experiences paranoia, hallucinations about a threat to her baby. Her mental state deteriorates as she tries to protect her child, straining relationships. Is she truly in danger or suffering postpartum psychosis.Postpartum mother experiences paranoia, hallucinations about a threat to her baby. Her mental state deteriorates as she tries to protect her child, straining relationships. Is she truly in danger or suffering postpartum psychosis.

  • Director
    • Darrell Roodt
  • Writers
    • Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo
    • Samuel Frauenstein
    • Darrell Roodt
  • Stars
    • Reine Swart
    • Thandi Puren
    • Brandon Auret
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    3.9/10
    1.8K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Darrell Roodt
    • Writers
      • Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo
      • Samuel Frauenstein
      • Darrell Roodt
    • Stars
      • Reine Swart
      • Thandi Puren
      • Brandon Auret
    • 31User reviews
    • 24Critic reviews
    • 48Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 16 nominations total

    Videos1

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 1:31
    Official Trailer

    Photos26

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    Top cast13

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    Reine Swart
    Reine Swart
    • Chloe van Heerden
    Thandi Puren
    • Ruby van Heerden
    Brandon Auret
    Brandon Auret
    • Dr. Timothy Reed
    Deànré Reiners
    • Adam Hess
    Dorothy Ann Gould
    • Midwife
    • (as Dorothy-Ann Gould)
    Shayla-Rae McFarlane
    • Young Chloe
    Eckardt Spies
    • Baby Liam
    Amjoné Spies
    • Baby Liam
    Samuel Frauenstein
    • Truck driver
    Briony Horwitz
    • Nurse 1
    Anne-Marie Ellis
    • Nurse 2
    Lara de Villiers
    • Boer mother
    Dayna McFarlane
    • Waiter
    • Director
      • Darrell Roodt
    • Writers
      • Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo
      • Samuel Frauenstein
      • Darrell Roodt
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews31

    3.91.7K
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    Featured reviews

    8SashaDarko

    Siembamba (2018)

    I thought it was going to be your average horror movie, but it's absolutely not. It's a very heavy drama which deals with such themes as horrors of the motherhood, mental illness and rape. All of this and a paranormal element on top of it which references genocide in concentration camps during Anglo-Boer War in 1901.

    The horror scenes are terrifying and very effective. The actors' performances are excellent and add a lot to the overall heavy atmosphere.
    3claudio_carvalho

    Messy Screenplay for a Simple Storyline

    In Eden Rock, the pregnant Chloe van Heerden (Reine Swart) returns to the house of her estranged mother Ruby (Thandi Puren). She refuses to tell her mother who the father is. She delivers the boy Liam, but fall in depression and lives an ambiguous situation, rejecting Liam and trying also to be a good mother. When she starts to see an evil entity and hear humming and shh, she visits the psychologist of her mother, Dr. Timothy Reed (Brandon Auret), who prescribes pills to her, believing she has baby blues. Meanwhile Chloe recalls how she got pregnant after leaving Ruby and her best friend Adam Hess (Deànré Reiners).

    "Siembamba" is an atmospheric horror movie, with a messy screenplay for a simple storyline. The best this film can offer is the magnificent performance of the unknown Reine Swart. She never tells anyone her dramatic fate after leaving home, and the creepy scenes are hard to understand. Is the evil entity part of her insanity process or is she real? The film fails since is not clear. My vote is three.

    Title (Brazil): "Siembamba, A Canção do Mal" ("Siembamba, The Song of Evil")
    8justin-w-nadolski

    A very deep look into trauma

    Words cannot do justice to the film and story. The supernatural crossing is an overlap of trauma centered on motherhood and the destructive nature of patriarchy. This is not a film for those overly sensitive to infanticide and sexual assault.
    2paul_m_haakonsen

    Well, the title speaks for itself...

    I do love watching horror movies, and I must admit that this 2017 horror movie titled "The Lullaby" (aka "Siembamba") was alluring. So I picked it up and gave it a chance, without knowing who was in the movie or what the movie was about. Yeah, I was sold by the movie's cover alone.

    Turns out that this movie was a massive swing and a miss from director Darrell Roodt, and it utterly failed to entice or entertain me. I managed to endure just about 30 minutes of the ordeal that is "The Lullaby" before I turned it off and gave up. Nothing had happened, nothing of any worth or any entertainment value. The movie's storyline was just so unfathomably slow paced that it was a drag to sit through.

    It should be said that the acting performances, from what I saw, was adequate, especially when you take into consideration the appalling lack of a proper script and storyline, which serves as an anchor around the performer's legs.

    I have zero interest in returning to watch the rest of "The Lullaby" ever. It just failed to provide any kind of enjoyable entertainment for me. I've watch many, many horror movies, but this was simply just a waste of time.

    My rating of "The Lullaby" lands on a two out of ten stars. It scores two given the production value of the movie. The rest of the contents weren't exactly lifting the movie upwards.
    5kannibalcorpsegrinder

    Problematic and troublesome effort

    Having just given birth to her son, a new mother returns to her mother's house to help raise him, and as their clash of ideals on how to raise him starts to toy with her the idea that something supernatural is trying to hurt him and forces her into a battle with her sanity to stop it.

    On the whole, this was a pretty cliched effort overall. The main factor against this one is the fact that so much of this one tends to feel like every other genre effort in this style. The vast majority of the film is incredibly familiar without too many variations, ranging from the sleepless nights up tending to the crying child and ignoring everything around her to deal with these fictitious moments to the inability to recognize the supernatural antics affecting her that could just as easily be just any normal everyday activity. This runs rampant throughout the first half of the film which causes this one to feel incredibly familiar and overly cliched due to the reappearance of all the same setups normally seen in such films. Given that majority of these take place in accordance with the family drama that takes place here doesn't do this one any favors at all since there's little about these scenes that are enjoyable. Again trading on numerous aspects throughout here that are seen many times over, the concept of her behavior and antics directly contradicting her mothers' ideas of childrearing which are handled through rather familiar arguments from being forgetful about locking it out in a different room, holding it in specific positions or generally being considered incompetent on subjects that mothers should be well-versed in. These areas are nowhere near interesting as the idea of these scenes are just dull and their drama-like nature doesn't make for a horror-centric viewing for the most part here. That is the biggest factor against this one since the film takes forever to get going into its horror-based reality that this one is a nearly-impossible entry to get into. Once it does go for some horror-based moments, this one has some decent ideas with the whole effort being about the deterioration of her psyche throughout the film. Taking the stellar backstory inspiration for the figure in her nightmares or the other forces acting on her psyche, this builds up into a rather intriguing and potentially fine storyline that really offers numerous scenes that showcase the breakdown of her psyche as physical acts. From her normal parenting duties that take place here bathing it, tending to it and all that really goes into helping prepare the baby for life, there's a great overbearing sense of dread building up her emotional state connecting the backstory of the ghostly figure to the freakout. This causes the final half to have some stellar energy and brutality which comes with some stellar sequences featuring a few decent jump-scenes with the best bloody scenes in the film. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot else to like here.

    Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and constant themes of children-in-danger.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      First purely South African production to release theatrically in the USA.
    • Quotes

      Dr. Timothy Reed: It's Not Murder If Your Saving Souls From Condemnation

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    FAQ

    • How long is The Lullaby?
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    Details

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    • Release date
      • March 1, 2018 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • South Africa
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook
      • Official Instagram
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • The Lullaby
    • Filming locations
      • Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
    • Production companies
      • Cut & Paste Generation
      • Kwazi Mojo Media
      • Phoenix Films
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross worldwide
      • $242,997
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 26 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.39:1

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