I just thought I had to throw in my penny's worth here and express my surprise at the glowing reviews for this film. Normally I tend to agree with the majority of reviews in the IMDb comments bit, but I feel like I live on a different planet to most of my fellow reviewers here. I had really high expectations for this movie, I loved Haute Tension, Calvaire, Sheitan, Inside, Trouble Every Day, Irreversible, Dobermann, etc etc; These new french horror flicks are really exciting, they follow the lead from the 80s french horror 'Baby Blood', in that they are uncompromising, gory, unpredictable, and even sexy. Frontier(s), sounded like it could easily fit in with this ethos, but it was a total blow out.
Frontier(s) is slickly shot, quite gory, and has some bits that should be scary, but it has this horribly immature atmosphere to it, like it was made by a bunch of 15 year old kids let loose with a decent budget and short term memory loss. The editing is ridiculous, rendering the film unwatchable and incoherent in the action scenes, Frontier(s) makes 'Van Helsing' look like a Bela Tarr movie. The acting is really bad too, with the main characters performances reminding me of some kind of inner London 'Yoof' centre Am-Dram play. The director has obviously watched 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and realised that if everyone screams their head off and goes into (unconvincing) spasms, then they will create a scary atmosphere. All it does is pull you out of the film.
Finally, the plot is completely stupid (even by horror standards), introducing a Nazi sub- plot (There is definitely a 'La Haine' type plot element, with Paris rioters coming into contact with neo-Nazis, hmm), and making no attempt at all to explain anything.
If you want to watch a film where by the end you feel like you have been shouted at and smacked around the face with a packet of Bernard Mathews gammon for 10 hours, then watch this film. Otherwise avoid like the bubonic plague.
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