Movie Review: Them (2006)

It's a buyer's market out there right now, and while I don't know diddly about real estate, I do have one piece of advice for everyone: Take your name out of the running for that huge and beautiful secluded country home. Yes, I know it's quiet and there's all that extra space you really need but TRUST ME. I've seen enough horror movies with a kick-ass gorgeous house in the middle of nowhere where nothing but bad things happen. The events from this French horror film, Them, is no exception.

Lucas and Clementine are a French couple living in an isolated mansion house in the Romanian countryside. In the middle of the night, they are awakened to the sounds of their car being stolen. But when the power goes out and unseen foes stalk them from inside and outside the house, they realize that their situation has just become much more dire.

So before I look up a single thing about this movie, I know one thing that pretty much everybody is going to say: They're going to compare Them to The Strangers. Closer to the conclusion of the film, I would said that comparisons can also be drawn from Eden Lake as well. Make no mistake, Them has a highly unoriginal plot. The plot is also very simplistic and really, not a lot happens. But it's still a good movie for the most part, albeit mediocre at times with a subdued climax that may put some people off.

Where this film succeeds is at technique. The film quality provided by Netflix Instant was somewhat grainy and oddly to me, the picture looked like it was squished from the sides (hate that) but the this has no bearing on the most important element used in the movie to establish atmosphere: sound. The cinematography is nothing special and at times it is way too dark, but the use of elevated natural sound heightens the tension and establishes the tone.

From the beginning of the movie, all those little, unimportant background noises seem to be turned up just a tad, such as the rain, cell phone beeps, and the turn signal in Clementine's car. This technique makes the both the character and the audience very aware of and attuned to their surroundings which can be quite frightening. The next sound could be that weird clacking noise heard throughout the movie - and it could be coming from anywhere.

Much like in the beginning of The Strangers, the bad guys in Them are mostly unseen until near the end of the film, and the revelation of who has committed these acts is supposed to be a big shock. To me, that shock has played its part and as horrible as it sounds, I'm not so surprised by the commission of violent acts by juveniles anymore. Sadly, that is a part of our world now. What gets me is that there is absolutely no information given about these kids. Do they live in the sewer tunnels where they eventually corner Clementine? They seem to know their way through the labyrinth under the streets. They have no names and no real motive for their actions, which is always much scarier and more unsettling.

So in the end we know nothing about our killers and we don't get a great deal of character development for Lucas and Clementine, either. We are given a tiny peek into their lives and are told just enough about them to make us like them. They are a happy and playful couple who seem to be in love. And really, what more do you expect from a movie like this?

The writers always seem to think, "All we have to do is show you that these people are nice and that they don't deserve to have these horrible things happen to them and you'll totally feel sorry for them!" To some extent, yes, that's true. But if we can't gain sympathy for these people from their normal lives, then we have to see them go through something so absolutely horrible that if we don't have sympathy for them after that then we can be classified as sociopaths. But the bulk of Them is a chase movie. A few minor jump moments and little bit of torture (Clementine is made to breathe through a plastic bag, probably with something nasty in it) and that's it. But we learn at the end that both Lucas and Clementine died, and they certainly didn't deserve that. But the ending is where I gained the most sympathy for our victims.

I said before that the climax of the film is subdued and that not a lot of people liked it. It is so subdued that it's hard to really define what the "climax" is. There is no escalation of the violence and the movie just kind of ends. But in a way, I liked what happened. It's a real downer, depressing ending when you're led to believe that Clementine might get away. She's running down the concrete tunnel toward the bright sunlight, but when she gets there, the exit is blocked by steel bars. She's screaming for help, a car passes by and she's gone. We really don't need to know what happens after, because it's probably not good. It's one of those "Oh fuck, she's screwed" endings, where that last little sliver of hope disappears and the bad guys win. It sucks, but it's perhaps closer to the truth than we want to believe.

A little overshadowed by its predecessors and similar films, I would still say that Them still deserves a look.

Movie Review: Frontier(s) (2007)

46 movies in my DVD queue, 57 movies in my instant queue. GOOD GRAVY. Not all of them are horror... but a fair number are. I don't know how else to get through them except one by one... by one by one by one. First up is Frontier(s).

"Intrigue" is French for "plot": A group of friends flee Paris during political riots with stolen cash, hoping to take their ill-gotten gains across the border to Amsterdam. They get split up and two of the boys, Tom and Farid, make it to an isolated inn. However, by the time the others, Alex and Yasmine, arrive, the group is in a horrifying situation with the Neo-Nazi family running the inn. There's another guy named Sami somewhere here but he's not part of the main story.

A bit haphazard at times, Frontier(s) is still a nice entry into the rave of ultra-gore films from those kooky French people. It starts out as a totally different than what it becomes, with a sort of crime-thriller feel. The credit sequence has several news-footage type shots of the rioting in Paris and our main group of friends running from the po-po and one of them getting shot. None of this really matters, though. The weird shit happens when the boys get to the inn and almost immediately proceed to have sex with the two women they find there. This is quite possibly the most awkward seduction I've ever seen. First of all, Tom is ugly and most obviously a douchebag. It's strange what Nazi cannibal chicks find appealing, isn't it?

Anyway, for comparison's sake, I'll say that this movie is a little bit Texas Chain Saw Massacre and a little bit Hostel (in the gore sense, not the poorly acted, misogynistic script). It comes *this* close to being as gory as High Tension, while trying to be as emotional as Martyrs. So there's a lot of stolen concepts blended in with a semi-new one of a crazed patriarch using Yasmine and his other female family members to create a master race.

However, this concept serves only to get across the fact that this dude and his family is nucking futs and never takes it anywhere further than that. The plot for the rest of the movie is simply a chase movie as Yasmine chops her way through the family to get to safety, with the help of the hunchback shy girl whose name I never caught. Most horror films end up as a chase movies by the beginning of the third act and I've come to accept that. Here, it leaves the movie falling a little flat. Sure, Yasmine's been through some crazy stuff and lost her friends and whatever but there's no real even attempted cathartic ending - the movie just, well... ends.

So in all, as I'm writing this just after seeing the movie, I gotta say that while it tried to offer something new to horror fans, a lot of Frontier(s) felt like shit I've seen 100 times before - only it was done better those other 100 times. The other films in the After Dark Horrorfest have not been that impressive either, save for a few minor accomplishments.

But I'll give the movie props for what it gets right. The few scenes of extreme gore are well-placed and well-executed. Remember in Hot Fuzz where Nick Frost's character asks, "Is it true that there's a place in a man's head that if you shoot it, it will blow up?"? Frontier(s) answers with, "HELL YES!" When Yasmine is saved from Crazy Brother #1 in the elevator, he's shot in the head. It is not most of his head that explodes as other horror films show, but his entire fucking head down to part of his neck. Awwwwwesome.

Let us not speak of the Achille's tendon cutting. We just don't need to go there. It sucks hardcore and nobody likes watching that crap, SO. Moving on.

Another great moment is when Alex and Yasmine are at one point chained to the wall in a pig pen. They manage to free Yasmine by breaking the chain and she has to dig through the mud and muck to get underneath the fence. The pigs are waiting on the other side and I had one shining glimmer of hope that maybe these were trained man-eating pigs or something and they would attack her. Sadly, this did not transpire. Oh what might have been.

There's also a nice shot after Yasmine has dispatched the last of the Nazis where the rain comes down, washing away the blood that covered her face, and she lets out a yell. Of triumph or horror, we don't know, but they do one of my favorite things in movies by shooting the rain in slow motion while she belts out her release to the heavens. I just love slow motion rain and think it looks incredibly beautiful.

Anyone else notice how Gilberta, the blonde chick, is dressed exactly like Sheri Moon Zombie in The Devil's Rejects? Just sayin'.