Madmen and Mexican Mushroom Cupcakes: The Mansion (2017)

The Mansion (Le Manoir) (France, 2017)

Rating: **

Starring: Marc Jarousseau, Nathalie Odzierejko and Ludovik

Knowing that this could be the last time their group will ever get together as college comes to a close, Nadine and her boyfriend Fabrice plans to host a New Year's Eve party at a rented Belgian mansion themed to the year 2000. Their guests include licentious Samantha and her very agitated ex Stephane as well as her young bookish cousin Charlotte, aspiring actor Djamal, wimpy Bruno, assertive gal Jess and goggle-wearing stoner Drazic. (The classic slasher stereotypes~)

For most parts, everything seems alright with the gang socializing with one another due to the mansion's lack of cell service and, once the festivities begin, everyone there is simply having a ball dancing, drinking and gorging on mushroom-laced cupcakes. But then Charlotte disappears into the woods, Nadine's dog "Kitty" is found decapitated and Djamal is found dead and hung. (Figuratively and literally) It's soon clear to our gang that someone wants them dead and it all may or may not have something to do with the mansion's former owner Baron Gluckenstein Muller, Satanic rituals and missing children.

As a production, The Mansion (2017) has a competent look when it comes to the gothic backdrop, with lighting, cinematography and set design working altogether to give us a slick-looking yet atmospheric terror mansion and a decent deal of creative editing came handy when giving the place an intimidating and ghoulish feel whenever a scene calls for it, resulting to a lot of chilling visuals fit for an old dark house story. 

It does take a while before anything remotely interesting happens, however, with the gang spending twenty-some minutes after an opening kill practically feeding us one exposition to the next of either what their whole deal is or what's troubling them. With The Mansion (2017) being a horror comedy and all, the focus of these dialogues (and the movies general direction for that matter) is to make us laugh and the brand of comedy presented here juggles mostly within the sleazy and juvenile. That said, if we're not engaged in conversation concerning the weirdest place to have sex in or the troubles of having a large manhood, we could be treated with jokes about getting high and talking to imaginary warthogs or how an unfortunate fella steps on dog shit before finding said dog's severed head. It's a gaggle of funnies I'm sure would cater to some, but I personally just find most of it dull and overused, with only a scant few that honestly got a genuine chuckle out of me.

As a slasher, The Mansion (2017) has its share of straightforward killings, though half and half of the rest of the slayings do lean to the brand of tired humor this film runs on, with one example being a fellow who, as a dying wish, have two of his female friends act out erotic roleplays while he jerked himself to death. It's a mixing of gore and gags that can be a real hassle to go through as they really try their hardest to sell the punchline for these kills, often overstaying their welcome before finally moving ahead to the next scene. Thankfully, though, the last act appears to have found a good balance on humor and horror as not only do we get some nasty deaths, but the twist reveal and the motive behind the murders came with some laughably fun visual gags and hilariously awesome deaths involving hallucinogenic overdose and cobra venom.

All in all, The Mansion (2017) is pretty staple example of a slasher comedy. It has the blueprints of a workable bonkers bodycounter, though the type of humor they went with is a real divisive brand. If you would like to go past beyond jokes involving masturbation, infidelity and animal feces, then you could do better, but for anybody else with a funny bone for this kind of stuff, more power to you lot, then, and I hope you'll enjoy this somehow.

Bodycount:

1 female dragged away, killed

1 male murdered offscreen, later seen hung by the groin

1 male had his legs chopped off with an animal trap, succumbs to his wounds

1 female had her neck crushed with a rolling pin

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male seen taxidermized

1 male seen taxidermized

1 male seen taxidermized

3 female heads seen taxidermized

1 female ran through with a pitchfork

1 female set ablaze

1 male swallows a poison dart frog, poisoned

1 male succumbs to cobra venom 

Total: 15

The Paris Neo-Nazi Massacre: Frontier(s) (2007)

Frontier(s) (France, 2007) (AKA "Frontière(s)")

Rating: ****

Starring: Karina Testa, Aurélien Wiik, Patrick Ligardes 

In the midst of one of France's presidential elections wherein a far-right candidate gets considered for position, a street gang of French-Arab youths takes advantage of the resulting riots to pull a robbery, scoring some cash they needed to escape Paris. The plan, however, ends up with them splitting for a bit after engaging the police in a gun fight, with one group consisting of Yasmine and her ex, Alex, looking for a hospital to treat Yasmine's severely wounded brother Sami, while the other two, friends Tom and Farid, drive to the countryside to look for a hideout where the rest can catch up.

Their predicament worsens when Sami dies moments after getting past hospital doors, forcing Yasmine to leave her him behind as security's made aware of their possible involvement with the riots. All the while, Tom and Farid decided to stop by a family-run inn near the border for a small break, only to somehow anger the clan when the innkeepers felt disrespected by the boys after a fairly disturbing dinner.

From that point, it all escalates to torturous and deadly turns as not only is the family revealed to be deranged and hinted to be cannibalistic, but they're also living remnants of the Third Reich, Neo-Nazis desperate to keep the bloodline of their "supreme race" alive. As the youngsters fall victim to their murderous madness one by one, Yasmine alone will find herself in a situation much worse than death and she will have no choice but to fight back or die trying.

Heavily borrowing elements from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and mixing it up with the violent taste of the New French Extremity movement, Xavier Gens' Frontier(s) is a bleak stroll down classic Hicksploitation horror that starts and ends in pure chaos. It's nothing relatively complex plot-wise as we follow yet another group of troubled friends ending up in unfamiliar grounds at a "middle-of-nowhere" countryside, to be horribly tortured and killed by what first looks like an angry family of rural folks, but the driving force that makes this movie a bit more extra is its unexpectedly wild turns tackling other exploitation tropes, leading to Grindhouse-gritty Nazisploitation, claustrophobic monster horror with secret tunnels being prowled by animalistic mutant children and Hostel-level of nihilistic torture and gore that get more grueling the further we go. 

It's a mixed bag of horror trappings that works well enough, though the multitudes of terrible on-goings definitely needs a tad more expanding around the conventions it introduced rather than mildly hinting it, such as the animosity and favoritism between the "family" members of the Neo-Nazi clan that broods a good deal of tension throughout the movie. There's also the matter that Frontier(s) wallows in its own bleakness a lot more than it needed to at times, which may turn off some viewers who isn't in it for complete doom and gloom as the film's flow pushes the ante of despair and torment to levels that bear little to no light to balance it out .

Then again, from what it offers, the film is made purely for exploitation fun and enjoyment, delivering on that front in full force with its sleek and grungy look, working on grainy-tint lenses, cinematography that's focused on everything in decay from buildings to flesh, and a breezy fast pace to keep the carnage going as much as possible. On that note, the gore scenes -the very highlight of this movie- are brutal in the rawest definition of the word, especially towards the finale in which Frontier(s) pulls a "reverse-slasher" on us. From Achilles heels crushed and cut with long pliers to a bisection by table saw, it's all a gorehound's treat for the amount of practical effects and fake blood used for these kills, with little to no CG assist done to keep it as old school as traditional filming and visual effects can get.

The cookie-cutter characters are played with good enough talent to bring them to life on screen, but their lack of depth may mean difficulty to empathize with them throughout their ordeal save, perhaps, Yasmine; leading actress Karina Testa done a fantastic job in her role as our definite final girl, a vulnerable protagonist at first, soon forced to fight back and feel the wrath of the clan after her character's subjected to watch her friends and former lover die. Her struggles to keep alive and escape in the later act infuses raw emotion and terror so perfectly, one might find themselves holding their breath back until the last shot of the film for how intense it all got.

Frontier(s) may be lacking a developed story or more fleshed out characters from both ends of the coin, it does have a story that sticks with you for a good while after all that manic cluster of blood, guts and torture. If you're looking for a carnal French horror flick that offers the basic exploits of people being tortured and slaughtered in all manners possible then try this for your liking. It could be your hidden gem!

Bodycount:

1 male dies from gunshot wound

1 male brained, throat cut with a knife

1 male cooked inside a sauna, shot with a shotgun

1 male shot on the head

1 elderly male shot with a shotgun

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 male repeatedly hacked with an axe, eviscerated in half with a buzzsaw

1 male had his head blown in half with a shotgun

1 female caught on a gas explosion, seen dying from a shrapnel to the neck

1 female had her neck bitten open, bled to death

Total: 10

A Cut At Night: In Their Sleep (2010)

In Their Sleep (Dans Ton Sommeil) (France, 2010)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Anne Parillaud, Arthur Dupont, Thierry Frémont 

A year after her son died from a tragic accident, Sarah's life is in shambles and her depression is taking over, robbing her of sleep and sanity. In this one night however, while driving home from work, she almost ends up hitting Arthur, a young man around the same age of her late boy who appears to be stalked by a car not too far off. After hearing from the boy that his family was murdered, Sarah sees herself responsible for Arthur's safety and allows him to stay at her nearly empty abode until they can sort everything out. 

But when the mysterious driver shows up and starts hunting down Arthur, the truth to his story begins to unravel and it seems Sarah will have to use her best judgement to determine what is real and who is the actual threat among these people.

Written and directed by duo Caroline and Eric du Potet, In Their Sleep (2010) may lack a capricious plot but it's intriguing enough as a watch for how overwhelmingly bleak it is to follow through from beginning to end. Emotional and intense, it walks a rather devastating stroll down grief and anguish from the eyes of its relatively small casts, may it be the victims or perpetrators, though a good brunt of this is mainly from Anne Parillaud's character Sarah; from the very start, she is dangerously desperate to find happiness in her current emotional and psychological state and is willing to make decisions that go over her better judgment. This, in turn, has us observing a silent breakdown of Sarah's psyche as she tries to make sense of what's happening in this one night, her doubts and tumbles further marking her for a fate bound to happen no matter how hard she tries going against it.

The catalyst to all of this is basically a home invasion scenario that's simply chilling; without giving away much, a killer made their way through a house that appears empty, helping themselves to whatever is around and enjoying the bounty until the owners return. From there, they hide and wait until everyone in the family is asleep before murdering them all one by one, everyday box cutter in hand. There's a sense of routine to the massacre that's just upsetting to think about, especially when it is eventually implied this wasn't the killer's first rodeo for this modus. Though, given the situation for this one night, it seems this is the first time things didn't go as per the usual plan and seeing the survivor's powerful reaction to their murdered family is just heartbreaking to sit through.

With its narration interwoven with flashbacks, dreams and everything in between, In Their Sleep (2010) toys with how it illustrates and deploys its character's motives and tragedies, compounding weight upon weight of dread and anticipation as we see more of the bigger picture, albeit in foreboding pieces. This effectively raises the tension between each character's relation with one another the further the story goes, giving us pieces of the past that only we're aware of and hoping highly that gets to be brought up. It's a plot-building tactic that's paced modestly (thus giving this movie quite the slow trot despite the short running time), even having its occasions of being a bit upsetting when it teases us outcomes that may or may not go the way we anticipated. 

Filled with lush cinematography and artistic flair, there's an underlying reservedness with this movie's execution compared to other French home invasion shockers such as High Tension (2003), Inside (2007) and Martyrs (2008). It's shock factor relies less from kills that borderlines into body horror and more on emotional impact, in which the stellar performances of its three leads graciously provided as they strongly impassioned all the sorrow and woe that would come from broken hearts and damaged minds. In Their Sleep (2010) may not be all that perfect, but it understands terror and loss by tapping (or cutting) a vein or two and, sometimes, that's quite enough to make a horror thriller that terrifying and distressing to watch. A guaranteed viewing for genre fans like you and me.

Bodycount:

1 male found impaled on rebars

1 female had her throat cut with a box cutter 

1 girl had her throat cut with a box cutter

1 male ran through with a sharpened lumber

1 male found with his throat cut with a box cutter

1 female seen dead from a throat cut 

Total: 6

Blinded Birds: Knife + Heart (2018)

Knife + Heart ("Un couteau dans le coeur") (France, 2018)
Rating: ****
Starring:  Vanessa Paradis, Nicolas Maury, Kate Moran

Summer of Paris, 1979; gay pornographer Anne Parèze (Vanessa Paradis) is terribly reeling from her recent breakup with her lover and editor Loïs (Kate Moran), and will soon have her wits and compassion tested when one of her actors, out one night to celebrate his latest film, was found killed at a leather-and-jockstrap bar. Initially unshaken by the news, Anne is instead inspired by the atrocity to create her most ambitious project, a pornographic murder thriller called Homocidal. This, of course, sparks disgust from some of her co-workers who are outraged by this exploit, as well as worry from the rest as their number starts to suspiciously drop like flies the more they proceed with the filming. It isn't until Anne gets an encounter with a masked figure that she starts to take this personally, but at that point, could it all be too late?

Drenched in neon glow and electronic synth, Knife + Heart (2018) strives to get the feel and look of an early 70s Mario Bava giallo fashioned around a stylized underbelly of pre-AIDS crisis France where sex and drugs were norms to be explored and enjoyed. With this, one would expect an exploitative sharp-edged horror thriller full of gore and explicit smut but, surprisingly with some softcore visuals and campy elements, the movie instead worked through its casts to tell its story and the result is a melancholic yet strangely warm mystery with a modest bodycount and broken sympathetic characters.

This is far from claiming Knife+Heart (2018) is a tamed beast, mind you, as much of the exploitative elements can still be seen around the first act where the film feels greatly like an adult slasher/giallo hybrid. A notable pair of rather brutal dispatches around this act have strong sexualized feels to them, juxtaposed only with enough stylized editing, camera work and scoring for an arthouse finish that kept the film decently away from being labeled as a simple yet violent erotica trash, but as the movie progresses into its second act which focus more on Anne's personal investigation on the killings, the direction have the murders parked back to let the story focus more on our lead's amateur snooping, as well as finding and fighting off her own personal demons.

It is around this part of the plot that the film dove into cheesier territories that honestly felt too fantastical compared to what's already happening and I'm not just talking about the spiritual symbolism that got chucked in for the film's need for sophisticated babbling, or that random genetic disease conflicting some random guy into having monstrous claws. Basically, there's hint that Anne have some sort of connection to the killer and it has something to do with a dream-like vision of a burning house she's been getting throughout the film. It is eventually explained what this burning house is alluding to, but I find this reveal awfully weak since it just sounded and felt too coincidental to earn any solid hold.

On the other hand, the reveal did give the killer a sympathetic backbone as, without spoiling much, it ties strongly to their motive as to why their going after Anne's filming crew. It is difficult to follow for a while as you work the pieces together but once the emotional finale runs its course, you can't but feel a tad sorry for the masked slasher considering what they have gone through.

Frankly, despite the convoluted nature of its mystery, Knife + Heart (2018) still works well enough as a horror movie thanks to Gonzalez’s and Mangione’s excellent scripting, making our queer characters little like the usual gay caricatures seen in these types of films and more like actual people with shades of insecurities and a need to feel loved and belonged. This could have been explored further with an edge seeing that the movie did hint some drama regarding social injustices against queer communities but the normalized treatment dulled the blade enough to the point this indifference more or less could've been dropped. Might be a good thing for some but I feel this was a missed opportunity to give some of our characters more angles to develop with.

Definitely for mature audiences for all of the boundaries considered and broken, with some good humor thrown in from time to time to keep the film far from being too serious and gloom, Knife + Heart (2018) is a surprisingly intriguing queer slasher that promises thrilling murders, wholesome laughs and genuine heartbreak. Not everybody's cup of tea, but a definite keeper for genre fanatics!

Bodycount:
1 male repeatedly stabbed in the rectum with a bladed dildo
1 male unknowingly fellates a bladed dildo, knifed through the head
1 male repeatedly knifed on the back
1 male caught on fire (flashback)
1 male found bleeding to death from a cut throat
1 female knifed on the chest
1 male knifed to death
Total: 7

Someone Lurking In The Derelicts: Therapy (2016)

Therapy (France, 2016)
Rating: **
Starring:  Nathan Ambrosioni, Thierry Azzopardi, Vanessa Azzopardi

A slasher movie and a found footage rolled into one? Not entirely new to my eyes and ears (Evidence (2013), Dead of Nite (2013), Exists (2014), The Gallows (2015), Just to list down a few), but I am willing to open up for another one of these seeing I have a soft spot for odd genre hybrids.

Therapy (2016) opens with a collection of camera footages showing three teens drinking beer and spray painting the insides of a derelict countryside house, unknown to them that another individual is stalking and also recording them as they go about their hijinks. The stalker soon makes their presence and captures one of them before (implied) murdering the rest with an axe.

The film then switches to third world view (for now) as police arrives and investigates the same house after following reports of blood being found in the place. Recovered from the building are a series of found footages, something detectives Jane and Simon are hoping to find some answers from regarding to what exactly happened that lead to all the blood works.

Majority of the footages are from home videos shot by a young man named Sebastien, who was recording his family's camping trip for a school project. All were fun and good times for them until that night, when they suddenly hear screaming from a nearby abandoned house. After catching a glimpse of a roughed-up looking girl from inside the building, the family unwisely enters to investigate, only for them to discover that a masked man with an axe is waiting for them...

Sounds like your typical hack'n slash? For most parts, Therapy (2016) certainly merits its category as a slasher as the film plays out a lot of stalking and killing, though more of the former and the latter being reduced to offscreen carnage, a flaw I often see in most found footage/slasher hybrids. The killer in play also isn't all that impressive to look at, coming out like a dollar store-imitation of  Michael Myers down to the overalls and white face mask (Heck, when I looked at one of this movie's posters, I assumed I'll be watching a Halloween fan film), and there's not a lot to say about its found footage elements neither as the shaky cam shtick have been done all too many times by now and the use of loud sounds for jump scares offers very little lasting effect. I will, however, commend the movie's use of a derelict building as a setting to garner a damn claustrophobic feel to the story, a little creep factor that I always welcome from my horror flicks.

I guess the only mad dash of originality Therapy (2016)'s  going for is its mystery and, for its worth, it did get me watching in anticipation to where exactly all of this is going when the recordings proceed to show that it is more than your typical "masked killer axing people to death" situation. The only matter of this is that our two detectives, who spend their time watching these tapes with us and theorizing what happened, doesn't show much character apart from being expositions with a name; they're basically just there to bookmark the events before viewing the next set of recordings and whatever history and personality they have weren't really explored properly; one of them hints signs of being abused, while the other...is simply there.

It also doesn't help that the last act fails to be anywhere as exciting as it should be, being a bit dull as not only did the movie lazily spoon-fed us the killer's identity, but the climax at the killer's abode just feels rushed, lacking any action and further context as to why exactly our villain is doing their MO. (Apart from, y'know, them being crazy) I understand the importance of keeping a villain mysterious for the sake of keeping them creepy, but with all the build up this film went through, you would expect more for our patience.

Seeing Nathan Ambrosioni, the director behind Therapy (2016), was only sixteen during filming, a part of me wanted to go easy on the kid considering that this is still a pretty solid and professionally movie (one that got theater releases), while another side of me felt underwhelmed as this being the boy's second feature, I expected some improvement. The movie's editing and camera work did bring a couple of eerily nightmarish imagery into play but, apart from this, it is mostly routine audio bumps and roller coaster cam, with a side of a dry slasher and a weak mystery. I like to think that maybe lil' Ambrosioni hadn't seen and experienced enough films to learn from and mold a more original feature upon making Therapy (2016), and if that's the case then he does have a long way to go, but I will commend him for making it this far.

Granted, Therapy (2016) may not last much in my memory nor will I lose any sleep over it, it's passable as a quick junk food horror that you can rent for a night just for the brief entertainment it offers.

Bodycount:
1 male and 1 female murdered offcamera with an axe
5 females found dead/dying from wounds
1 male found murdered, method unknown
1 male seen murdered, method unknown
1 female hacked with an axe
1 female found with a throat cut
1 female shot in the mouth
1 female seen stabbed on the chest
1 female seen stabbed
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 female shot
Total: 17

The Naked Clown: Among The Living (2014)

Among The Living (Aux Yeux Des Vivants) (France, 2014)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Anne Marivin, Théo Fernandez, Francis Renaud

Filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo are among the few people in the horror community I keep an eye out for mainly due to their movie Inside (2007), a new wave French slasher centering on a pregnant woman fighting off a deranged maniac who wants to cut out and steal her baby. It is extremely graphic and a wonderfully intense piece of modern horror that managed to unnerve me, so much so I consider it as one of the best slashers out there. With this being a fact, I obviously wanted to see more from Julien and Alexandre and, so far with Livid (2011) and that gruesome ABCs of Death 2 short X is for Xylophone, they're doing okay....ish.

From that, we now look into their third feature, Among The Living, which opens one Halloween night in France where a soldier suffering from PTSD gets savagely attacked by his pregnant wife (Inside (2007) actress Beatrice Dalle in a cameo) apparently out of frustration from taking care of both him and their seemingly deformed son. After failing to kill off both her spouse and boy, however, the matriarch decided to end it all by stabbing her own womb instead before slashing her own throat in front of her family. Not wanting anymore trouble to fall on him and his son, the disturbed husband flees the scene with his children (Yes. Children. The now-dead fetus, too), driving away into the night.

Some time later, three young troublemakers, Victor, Dan and Tom, skip the rest of their school day after causing too much ruckus and set off to do some more juvenile fun instead such as setting angry farmers' barns on fire in revenge for almost breaking one of their limbs, or simply relaxing on a row boat at a small lake. But this time, the lads see something peculiar as a tow truck they never seen before drives by and enters an abandoned movie studio, with a car on tow. Following the truck out of curiosity, the boys are horrified to find a woman bound and gag inside the trunk of the car, and a large man in a rotting clown mask emerges to take her away.

After a failed attempt to rescue the woman, the boys are later found by cops (sent to look for them after the barn burning incident) and their story of masked men kidnapping women naturally fell to deaf ears knowing their history for trouble. Their respective families are also quick to dismiss the event as another tall tale, something no short of a deadly mistake when the masked man somehow followed them all home and starts to methodically snuff them dead one by one.

From the sound of the plot alone, I wanted to like Among The Living a bit more than what I do right now, since it is technically a slasher with a child murder taboo-breaking. For most parts, it does exactly that with the clown masked man, now stripped nude and going sortah frontal on us (you'll know what I mean by "sortah" once you see it), stalking and killing the children who bore witness to his crime, mostly taking along whoever else happens to be in the house with them. This is usually a nice set-up to build some intense and distressing scenario and Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo definitely show they still got the directional flair to do suspense, shocks and creepy imagery, but I can't help but feel underwhelmed.

I could try to be as shallow as possible and just simply enjoy the horror offerings provided, but the first act of the movie did an otherwise okay job building around the three boys that I really wanted to see more of these kids and their lives. Granted we are given some expositions and even a little glimpse of what's going on in each of their little worlds, they did little to further flesh out the children, which is a big negatory for any main characters as the ambiguity of whether they will make it out of the ordeal alive or not often lies to how well liked and relatable they are. Once the killings begin, the kids and more or less everybody else who get roped in the chaos are easily reduced to slasher flick victims, with half of them dying less-than-spectacular deaths, adding insult to my injuries.

This leads to another issue of mine with Among The Living; now, I understand that a good deal of these killings may have been done in a certain way for artistic flair, but I have mixed feelings with the continuous series of offscreen kills around the middle part of the film, something I find odd since the movie had no problem showcasing blood, guts and aborted fetuses at the opening, as well as continue bringing us onscreen carnage after these portions with the offcamera slayings. To be fair, I do find half of these offscreen deaths quite creative and darkly comical as they used an ominously brightening glow and an intensifying heart beat to imply the character's end, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of these characters get their a brutal comeuppance (Like a certain abusive father) and I personally believed a lot important players were killed off too soon.

Still, as mentioned prior, Among The Living possesses some of the more effectively creepy and intense scenes for a slasher flick, like a good ole take on the popular "clown doll" urban legend and one torture porn-ish murder involving a broken arm cast, a chisel and a foot. The whole tone of the movie even deviates itself from a common slasher as it has that dark fantasy air of sorts with its gypsy-inspired soundtrack, humanoid monsters and devilish cavern-turned secret lairs. Whenever it wanted to be brutal, it does tries its best to be as brutal as it can be, but I can tell there's a stronger priority on atmosphere here.

The killer (soon killers) committing these atrocities is an interesting fellow too, being a disfigured man (?) who has no problem going buff while he prowls and murders. The last time I recall we have a nudist killer would be the butt-naked serial murderer Warren Stacy from the cop thriller/slasher hybrid 10 to Midnight (1983) and, to some extent, the titular Mary Hatchet of the underrated guilty pleasure Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet (2009), but what sets our nudie killer apart from these guys would be the fact that he prefers to murder using nothing but his strength, impressively seen when he easily breaks a plaster cast and re-breaks an arm. He is eventually joined by his own father (revealed early on as the same father at the opening slaughter) who brought out the more stabby n' slashy killings, with a nice touch of chemical weapons to boot.

Altogether, its issues led Among The Living being dry and uninspired respectively in the blood and story department, but when it comes to creep factor and tone, it still found a way to make a lot of that work despite the lackluster story. I honestly believe this film would have done better if it focused more on building its character and paced its killings a bit, but it's here, existing, so we might as well try to enjoy it. If you love odd French horror films or at least appreciates an atmospheric one, Among The Living might be right up your alley. If you prefer a warmer, stickier and redder slasher flick, you may wanna try something else. Like Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo's extreme first feature opus.

Bodycount:
1 pregnant female knifed her own womb, throat cut
1 female killed offcamera, method unknown
1 boy killed, method unknown
1 male shot (?), later found mangled
1 boy killed, method unknown
1 male beaten, later paralyzed with a chisel and choked on killer's foot
1 female shot
1 male poisoned, crushed with a rock
1 male had his face sliced off with a sword
1 male stabbed with a sword, shot on the head
Total: 10

Cheese Without a Face: Faceless (1987)

Faceless (Les Predateurs De La Nuit) (France/Spain, 1987)
Rating: ***
Starring: Helmut Berger, Brigitte Lahaie, Telly Savalas

Singling this movie out as a slasher is only a portion of the truth. Should you add medical thriller, mad science, sleazy exploitation, and whatever movie genre allows a detective to fight an uber-muscular yet comically-voiced bodybuilder, then you will have the near-perfect definition for this strange late 80s euro-horror.

Starting the film classy with a shot of the Eiffel tower at night and a very vocal fellow (Vincent Thoma) mellowing our ears with the movie's own theme song, we soon follow Dr. Frank Flammand escorting his sister Ingrid and his assistant Natalie around the city as they have whatever fun rich and successful plastic surgeons can think of. Their evening was soon interrupted when one of Frank's former patients caught them off guard and tried to melt the doctor's face with acid in revenge for botching up her face. Fortunately for Frank, the vengeful patient misses when his sister pushed him away. But for Ingrid, however, she received the acid attack instead, severely burning her face.

Years passed and both Frank and Natalie are finding ways to repair Ingrid's face, most (if not all) of which involves kidnapping beautiful and fair-skinned women in hopes of placing one of their faces to Ingrid's. Why it never dawned on these two that some people will recognize the face they'll be stealing should their project be a success and get themselves in a bigger mess, I have no clue, but they seem to be sticking with this plan as they proceed to add another captive, an attractive fashion model for a new one-of-a-kind watch.

With the model's father rightfully concerned about his daughter's sudden disappearance, in comes private detective Sam Morgan snooping around in Paris and trailing whatever leads he can get. All the while, Frank, realizing he needs a professional's help, asks former Nazi doctor Orloff for assistance, a requests the surgeon is happy to accept as he sees it as an opportunity to hone his mad science talent yet again.

So now we got the mad science part. Where do the slasher bits come in, you say? Welp, just to cater for us blood junkies and gorehounds, Faceless also packs a fair amount of chunky bloodletting on behalf of Natalie and a mute (and sexually frustrated) brute named Gordon whose job is simply eliminate any living leftovers from the doctors' surgeries, as well as those who got too close on discovering their little secret. Truth be told, out of all the murders here, only one felt legitimately in tune with a slasher flick's with a nice chase scene and a power tool-wielding Gordon, while the rest were more or less just extra bloody and grandeur killings you can pull off for a crime thriller. This being said, while I am pretty impressed by the splatterific gore effects here, I cannot help but think that the dead women in this movie aren't the only ones missing their identity.

Basically, Faceless is every B-grade horror and exploitation flicks rolled into one since there's a little bit of something for everybody, such as the likes of unapologetic sleaze scenes, bloody murders, crazy Nazi science, and cheesy action sequences just to name a few. And like most hodge-podged stories, the tone is, unsurprisingly, shifty as it ranges mostly from being unintentionally (or maybe, intentionally) hilarious to just plain gross and uncomfortable, bringing nothing more to the table than some really bad writing in both the sense of scripting and plotting, but saved by the grace of just having the right amount of cheese, some fun (albeit oddly acted) characters and an EC comic- style take on horror and macabre. The pacing is relatively easy to follow too, and rarely boring as something interesting and/or cheesy is always going on, so while it's not a good movie, per se, Faceless has the charm of a really bad midnight picture that only a 70s sleaze-meister like its director, Jess Franco, can provide.

Obviously not gonna be everyone's kind of biscuit, this cult fave euro-horror is mostly enjoyable as a popcorn flick for the no-brainers and tongue-in-cheekers, and I wouldn't want it anymore than that! Some people might want to look elsewhere should they want a stronger mystery or less exploitative "detective story", but for the rest of us horror fans who just wanna have fun, there's nothing Faceless cannot provide!

Bodycount:
1 female hacked with a machete
1 female body seen
1 female injected with a syringe full of chemical into an eye
1 female decapitated with a chainsaw
1 male stabbed through the throat with a pair of scissors
1 female powerdrilled through the head
1 female had her face flayed off, presumably killed
1 male had his head pushed into a hanger hook, impaled
Total: 8
(Note: due to the nature of the ending, I decided not include 2 possible additional victims)

Puppy Love Snarling: He Loves Me...He Loves Me Not (2002)

He Loves Me...He Loves me Not (À La Folie... Pas Du Tout) (France, 2002)
Rating: ****
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan, Isabelle Carré

And lo and behold, the one film that puts me off dating for another ten years.

Young and perky Angelique is an art student whimsically in love with an older gentleman named Loic, who is the local cardiologist. We watch her plays a daring affair with the married man by sneaking in presents, love notes, pink roses and, once, share a small date with him during a fancy party, much to the disapproval of her concerned friends. But just as it seems their romance couldn't get any more bittersweet, Loi'c pregnant wife had a miscarriage and Loic apparently abandons Angelique all the way. Depressed by his "betrayal", Angelique goes through many desperate means to have him back, destroying her own life, as well as the lives of other people along the way.

To call À La Folie a horror film is only half right since it was more of a dark deconstruction of your typical love story, before becoming a gritty and unsettling reconstruction into thriller territory.

The face of evil? Hardly.
Until halfway into the film...

Right at the beginning of the film, we are lead to think that this is going to be your sweet puppy-love type of plot and it seems steadying on that direction until upsetting and disturbing elements such as affairs, miscarriages, and stalkings start to make its way into the narrative. By then, À La Folie goes intense, unpredictable, and incredibly scary as the once sweet Angelique devolves into a desperate and dangerous character, lost in her own delusions that her love will come back for her.

A lot of this effectiveness goes on the talents involved since À La Folie is dry on the bloodletting department, with all but one scene of violence implied; Audrey Tautou plays one of the leads, Angelique, with much passion and quirkiness that seems as adorable as her other well-known role, Amelie from the 2001 French film of the same name. However, unlike her character there, Tautou had more range to work in this production as, again, we see her character degrade into a manic state, which works quite a lot on bringing out the creepiness of her situation seeing how pretty, talented, and seemingly sane this character was. Samuel Le Bihan plays the good doctor Loi'c who, much like Tautou, was given a wide array of characterization from a simple line-less plot piece, to a man soon to be haunted by paranoia and desperation to figure out who is destroying his life.

These two were never really seen interacting with one another in the same shot, which plays a devilish importance to the movie's twist halfway into the run and perhaps another good reason why the film worked so well thanks to these casts; without spoiling much (Unless you already saw it yourself. Or the trailer. Or read about it somewhere), the film decided to do an approach interconnecting Angelique's and Loic's perspective which drastically change the pitch of the film until the end. It also made repeated viewings of this film quite a treat since, once you knew what is really going on, À La Folie works so much better as the thriller it was meant to be, playing with winks and nods to the audience for the upcoming horrors abound.

Things ultimately wrap up rather calmly, with both characters somehow ending up recovering from something but the real horror continues and lingers on even once the end credits roll, especially when another chilling reveal was made for us to ponder about. With all of this, little violence is to be expected, which is definitely a breath of fresh air from all the recent violent French horror, but still make way for the same messed-up psychological torture and scares the European country is sort of  known for. Heartily recommended!

Bodycount:
1 baby implied miscarried
1 female implied dead from a heart seizure
Total: 2

Home Alone: 3615 Code Pere Noel (1990)

2014 CHRISTMAS ENTRY!

3615 Code Pere Noel (AKA "Game Over", "Hide and Freak") (France, 1990) 

Rating: ****
Starring: Brigitte Fossey, Louis Ducreux, Patrick Floersheim

In 1990, Home Alone was released in American theatres, a holiday film about an 8-year old boy accidentally left all alone in his house when his family flew off to France for Christmas in a hurry. He then discovers the hardships of responsibility and has to defend his home from a duo of bumbling idiots, all while spouting one-liners.

As cherished as it is as a holiday favorite by many, us horror (and thriller) fans knows a dirty little secret behind this film: France already beat them to it! Enter 3615 Code Pere Noel (1990), a thriller following a similar plot, yet with a dark twist of its own.

Thomas is the son of a successful business woman and the grandson of a diabetic (and nearly blind) Grandfather Papy, whom the boy cherished as a beloved father figure. He is a kid of familiar interests such as video games, playing as Rambo with his dog, fantasy role playing game and a fascination with Santa Claus, but what sets him apart from other children is that he's a whiz. Not only is he capable of fixing cars and setting up security cameras, but he's also fully equipped to create remote-operated booby traps and secret passage ways that are all over his house.

It was one Christmas Eve when Thomas' mum had to go to work for an all-nighter. With Papy and his dog as his only companions all through that evening, he decides to stay up late in hopes of capturing Santa on video to prove his existence. But unknown to him, the company where his mum works at just fired a disturbed vagrant, who was originally hired the same day to dress up as Santa, only to get too physical with a girl.

Wanting revenge, he hitched a ride on a toy truck headed to Thomas' home and, after a quick killing spree bumping off the driver, a cook and a gardener, he sneaks down a chimney and lands in front of a hiding Thomas, giving the child a sense wonder and delight...

...until "Santa" stabs his dog on the throat with a cake knife. God, I hope that's not a real dog cuz it was graphic! Now alarmed, Thomas wakes up his grandfather and must spend an entire night in a fight for survival against a dangerous murderer, hellbent on revenge.

What sets Pere Noel apart from its American cousin is that it's darkly serious; Home Alone plays a family friendly version of a home invasion movie by setting up a witty (and sometimes obnoxious) kid against two harmless thieves who some how can survive traps that can definitely kill an ordinary man. Pere Noel goes through familiar trappings but with a child that's believable despite it's cartoonish high-tech skills. Thomas may have the capabilities of using his intellect and resourcefulness against a mad man but deep inside, he's frightened by the situation not only for himself, but also for his grandfather as any child would. The bond Thomas have for his grandfather is what drives this film in terms of warmth and thrills as the two characters are given enough scenes showing how close they are as a family, even before the nameless killer reared his spray-painted ugly face into the picture.

In turn, the killer here is no idiot who's calling card is to fill up basements with running water, but a homicidal maniac and child abuser who might be one of the better Santa-themed villains out there. He's frightening, merciless and clearly unhinged, seen with the way how he lacks any hesitation to kill Thomas and Papy whenever he almost got the chance, giving us a lot of intense scenes of close calls. And this is practically what the entire movie is, one long chase scene with bodies to be found, a maniac relentless in his pursuit ready to attack in any moment. It's simple, yet effective. 

Heart-warming and yet terrifyingly intense, Pere Noel is a title that deserves to be known out there if it wasn't for the risk of being compared to Home Alone. To be fair, Pere Noel came out first (released in 1989 for the Laon Film Festival of Youth and Children's Films, then nationwide in 1990) and it is a wonder whether Home Alone's writer John Hughes had taken a few influences from this film. Nonetheless, this French thriller is visually stunning and well-developed enough to make a personal impact, though I do have a few gripes on some slow scenes in the middle, a minor flaw compared to its respectable final result. (Plus it has Bonnie Tyler singing a soundtrack for the film! As a fan of 80s music, how is that not cool for me?!)

If you want something different to watch apart from your usual Christmas specials, or just wanted to see something very obscure to add in your horror/thriller watch list, feel free to seek out 3615 Code Pere Noel. It's not the best film to come out of the country, but it is an entertaining piece of work that truly deserves to be discovered.

Bodycount:
1 male murdered, method unknown
1 male and 1 female killed offscreen
1 dog stabbed on the neck with a cake knife
1 male murdered offscreen
1 male shot to death
Total: 6

This scene. So Halloween (1978)

Surviving: Them (2006)

Them ("Ils") (France/Romania, 2006)
Rating: ****
Starring: Olivia Bonamy, Michaël Cohen, Adriana Mocca

Home invasion scares me a lot. May it be a scene or the subject of a movie itself, the idea of having someone breaking into your house to terrorize you for whatever reason they can think of is pure terror.

Them, or Ils in France, is another entry to the suspiciously growing number of French horror films featuring home invasion. High Tension (2003), Inside (2007), In Their Sleep (2010), if I've known better, the French seems to have a fetish for this stuff but comparing this title to the rest, Them is quite tame on the blood work, focusing instead on delivering tight scares through simplicity.

The plot is easy to follow; a couple on their vacation house suddenly find themselves terrorized by someone attempting or may have already broken in. What first started as a series of unusual occurrences such as TVs being turned and left on, strange noises and one stolen car, it soon escalates violently as the intruder begins to stalk and harm them in their own home.

Enjoy each other while you can, lovelies.

What settles Them as a worthwhile viewing is that you could actually feel some grit and nihilism around the entire run despite the obvious horror clichés. The opening had us watching a bickering mother and a spoiled daughter getting stranded in the middle of an nearly isolated road; five minutes after this, the car won't start, the phone has a bad signal and the killer turns out to be hiding at the back seat. Further into the movie, more of the classic dos and don'ts such as wandering into an attic alone or yelling whilst on the run from a maniac nearly grounded Them as a stereotyped slasher but thankfully, these are gripes outnumbered by positives.

While it the direction is slow-burning, taking at least a good third before the couple realizes the break-in, what work here is the low cast count; by having only two leads and taking the time to play around on what this couple are up to in their lives, we do get to see a bit of realism from these characters as ordinary people that you can meet at any day, rather than one-dimensional stereotype cartoons that plague almost every horror movie made.

Once the horror starts, they get frustrated, confused and worn-out as something they never expected is suddenly happening to them for no explicit reason. It's all natural coming from them and the film's lack of explanation for these attacks comes out bone-chilling given the twists revealed later on. (Although, it's no surprise there's more than one of these hoodies. The title gave it away)

Shot in a grainy and hand-held quality, Them sports some great camera work and naturalistic shots. The last third of the film effectively utilizes these elements as it takes place out in the woods and into an unused sewer tunnel, a claustrophobic final back-drop that's as intense as it is suffocating with low, flickering lighting and maze-like turns. It also has a brief chase scene reminiscent of those commonly found in slasher movies, ending with a uber-simplified and creepy final shot that makes you think twice whenever you see an empty lot.

Not by far the bloodiest home invasion flick, but otherwise workable for it's simplicity and steady tension. Best served side-by-side with a little something titled The Strangers (2008)!

Bodycount:
1 female disappears, presumably killed
1 female strangled with a garrote
1 male pushed off and fell to his death
1 male bludgeoned to death with a dead branch
1 male hacked on the chest with a hay hook
1 male snared away with a garrote, killed off camera
1 female killed off camera with a hay hook
Total: 7

Thanks to you, movie, I always looked back at empty lots like this...
Creepy.