When you hear sweet syncopation
And the music softly moans
T'ain't no sin to take off your skin
And dance around in your bones
When it gets too hot for comfort
And you can't get an ice cream cone
T'ain't no sin to take off your skin
And dance around your bones
-Tain't No Sin, By Edgar Leslie
I have known about this movie for a while, but the whole French extreme genre is something I really have to be in the mood for. MARTYRS gave me more than enough new nightmares to pop into my head at 3 am, and this movie just might be even nastier.
hope yall got a barf bucket and cat pictures ready
Frontier(s) is a 2007 French-Swiss independent horror film written and directed by Xavier Gens in his feature-length debut. In Paris, during the riots due to the election of a conservative candidate to the presidency of France, a group of four Muslim small-time criminal teenagers from the periphery; Alex, Tom, Farid, the pregnant Yasmine, and her brother Sami, plan to run away from Paris to Amsterdam with a bag full of robbed money. However, Sami is shot and the group split up, with Alex and Yasmine going to the emergency hospital with Sami while Tom and Farid head to the border with the money. Tom and Farid decide to stop in a bed and breakfast nearby the frontier and are hosted by Gilberte and Klaudia that offer free room and sex to the newcomers. They call Alex and Yasmine who are fleeing from Paris to join them in the inn. But soon they discover that their hosts are sadistic cannibals of a Nazi family led by the deranged patriarch and former SS officer and Nazi war criminal Le Von Geisler who plans to make Yasmine the broodmare for a new Aryan master race.
As I feel the urge to say whenever I cover foreign films, that I can't really comment on a lot of the political and social commentary about life in France. I have certainly seen my fair share of neo-fascism, race riots, and paramilitary crackdowns in the brief 22 years I have been alive, but I live in blissful ignorance about most of the country's history. So I can't talk much about the themes and motifs of this movie with any real confidence, so let's just stick to how I would describe the viewing experience.
Right off the bat, it's kind of funny to see a gang of thugs talk in a lovely language for this whole movie. It almost sounds too flowery to match the swear-filled subtitles, but hey I'm just some dirty Yankee asshole's opinion. it doesn't instantly engage me with its characters like MARTYRS does, but Xavier Gens's directing keeps me plenty happy as this movie slowly gets to the good shit. eventually, they get to the hotel, The classic horror red flags are all ignored, and now we are just waiting for the predators to pounce on their prey. but first, we have to watch a hotel room sex party, a very TEXAS CHAINSAW dinner scene complete with grandma, and about 30 minutes in this finally starts to be a horror movie.
Do you know how some folks who don't know how to direct a good action scene will shake the camera around a bunch to make things look more intense and hide some of the gore? this movie has a similarly active camera, but never uses that style of filming to hide any of the gore or hide poor choreography. Even with the basic bitch score this movie knows how to shoot a good action scene, and they keep teasing you in ways that keep me engaged enough to excuse this movie's stop-start pacing.
I won't bore you with a minute by minute play by play for this whole movie, but what I have said so far gives you a good idea of what you are in for. the movie has that kind of HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES style of lets stick these characters in the worst possible situation first and think of the plot second that i wish was more present in the first half hour, but if you are patient this is a downright cruel little horror movie thats worth a watch for hardcore horror fans. i really dont give a shit about any of these characters, but hey the movie still works kinda.
There is a reason MARTYRS is the first thing people think of they think French Extremity.
its still the best movie i have seen in the whole genre so far.
this whole movie just feels... unessacary
7/10
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