October 22, 2006
Ils (aka Them)
French horror film mines abundant scares from its simple structure
Starring: Olivia Bonamy, Michael Cohen
Rating: 9/10
Directed By: David Moreau, Xavier Palud
Runtime: 77 minutes
Starring: Olivia Bonamy, Michael Cohen
Rating: 9/10
Directed By: David Moreau, Xavier Palud
Runtime: 77 minutes
It's been a wonderful year for horror movies with studios willing to finance films that actually scare people and young filmmakers willing to step up to the bat and deliver those types of films. Add David Moreau & Xavier Palud's fantastic thriller to that short list of films that are helping put the scare back in scary movies.
Clementine (Olivia Bonomy) and Lucas (Michael Cohen) are a young French couple transposed to rural mansion in the outskirts of Bucuresti, Romania. Clementine is a young teacher while Lucas spends his days writing in the mansion's decrepit greenhouse. All of this information is delivered in roughly 5 minutes of exposition and then the real story begins. After they are awakened by a host of strange noises in the middle of the night, the couple find themselves thrust into a waking nightmare as they are terrorized by someone (or something) that may or may not exist.
Much of the film's success is based on it simple concept and abbreviated runtime. This is a film edited within an inch of its life and completely lacking any fat. Little time is invested in setting up the couple or their back story as it's irrelevant and absolutely no time or effort is put into explaining the murderous "them" that terrorize the young couple. Some may see this as a flaw but in successful horror movies, less is truly more. The least interesting (and least scary) part of any horror movie or horror movie franchise for that matter is the killer's back story and his/her/its reasons for doing the things that he/she/it does. Michael Myers and Freddy didn't get boring until filmmakers decided to explain their actions and, as Ils proves, there is and will never be anything more terrifying then the unexplained.
Clementine (Olivia Bonomy) and Lucas (Michael Cohen) are a young French couple transposed to rural mansion in the outskirts of Bucuresti, Romania. Clementine is a young teacher while Lucas spends his days writing in the mansion's decrepit greenhouse. All of this information is delivered in roughly 5 minutes of exposition and then the real story begins. After they are awakened by a host of strange noises in the middle of the night, the couple find themselves thrust into a waking nightmare as they are terrorized by someone (or something) that may or may not exist.
Much of the film's success is based on it simple concept and abbreviated runtime. This is a film edited within an inch of its life and completely lacking any fat. Little time is invested in setting up the couple or their back story as it's irrelevant and absolutely no time or effort is put into explaining the murderous "them" that terrorize the young couple. Some may see this as a flaw but in successful horror movies, less is truly more. The least interesting (and least scary) part of any horror movie or horror movie franchise for that matter is the killer's back story and his/her/its reasons for doing the things that he/she/it does. Michael Myers and Freddy didn't get boring until filmmakers decided to explain their actions and, as Ils proves, there is and will never be anything more terrifying then the unexplained.