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Frontiére(s) – Movie Review

Frontiére(s) – Movie Review

I have been putting off watching this film since it arrived in the mail. The cover touts it as the French answer to Saw and Hostel. So I immediately put it into my head that I going to have to watch this alone (my partner = not so good on the extreme violence) and in the right frame of mind. So after weeks of putting it off I popped the disc into the player to see what Xavier Gens could bring to the extreme horror genre.

The story follows five friends in near-future Paris who use the current social climate of riots and unrest to stage a heist. Their getaway isn’t as clean as they would like and one of their group succumbs to a bullet wound. The group split up and agree to meet at a motel near the border so they can go together to Holland.

This first part of the story is told in the opening 15 minutes and to me was the most interesting. We get introduced to the characters after the heist with a group of police chasing them on foot through the burning streets of Paris. The news footage and the atmosphere put together is really good and you are quickly thrown into the action. We get a clear sense of the motivations of the characters we are to follow through the rest of the film. Yasmine has come along for support for her brother Sami even though her ex-boyfriend Farid is also part of the gang. Alex takes on the leadership role and Tom is mainly concerned with the cash from the robbery.

Tom and Farid end up at a dodgy bed and breakfast on the border that seems to be run by a weird family initially consisting of a brother and two sisters. It all goes down-hill at the dinner table where the family finds out that Tom & Farid are Muslim and won’t eat the pork that they are served. What comes next is just a standard kill or be kill situation that get worse once Yasmine and Alex finally turn up. The family are neo-Nazi’s complete with Father who dresses and speaks the part.

We see lots of gore, meat hooks, bullet wounds and mutant children. The effects are good and will give most gore-hounds enough to enjoy the film. The actors do well with what they have to work with and the look of the film is detailed and competently handled however the biggest problem is that it just isn’t original. If you have seen The Hill’s Have Eyes then you have seen the middle third of this film. If you have seen any film where the captive kills her way out of the situation, the you have seen the last half of the film. This really sucked for me as I loved the setup that is mostly left alone and only brought back in the last 3 minutes of the film.

I would say if you are interested in the more extreme gore type horror, then have a watch but if you want something with a little more substance then give it a miss. I give the film a “Meh” as it neither set my world alight or was completely boring to the point that I was going to fall asleep.

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About The Author

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Self-proclaimed media addict, Bruce is the technical power house of Joffre Street Productions which includes being a founder of the world (in)famous podcast (Cool) Shite on the Tube. When Bruce isn't working on this website, he is working on other peoples websites and new media solutions. Movies, comics and 50 foot robot wrangling is where Bruce is at.

Article Information

  • Posted: Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
  • Author: Bruce Moyle
  • Filed Under: Review
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

One Response to “Frontiére(s) – Movie Review”
  1. avatar Blonde Lusty Team says:

    I really enjoyed the look of this movie, it was something a little different but nothing totally AMAZING- nazi cannibals was quite interesting =D oh and the soundtrack was killer =)

    November 20, 2009 at 5:05 am

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