Frontier(s) (2007)

hyped garbage

Expected more

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Frontier(s) is a fast-paced, very violent thrill-ride from Xavier Gens (The divide, Hit-man@2007, ABCs of death-segment-XXL). It is a brutal, depressing horror flick. Obviously the director was influenced by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House of 1000 corpses, Timber falls. There are some genuinely frightening scenes, like the claustrophobic-to- the-max 'tunnel scene' n the Oven scene. Excellent cinematography by Laurent Barès (Inside, Livid, Hit-man, The divide, The pack). The Inn, the farmhouse, the claustrophobic mine, the chilling elevator, perfectly lighted hall, the deserted roads all very well shot. The movie is tight and fast-paced and very eerie. Saw this on a rented DVD in 2008. The acting is pretty good with Samuel le Bihan (The code, Brotherhood of the wolf) particularly fine as a brutal villain and Karina Testa one beautiful, gutsy and sympathetic heroine. The movie had strong character development and gave me a sense of sympathy for the actors playing the characters in distress. It devotes a good 30 minutes or so to acquainting us to the characters and really making you like them. Frontiers is fast brutal sadistic movie filled with tons and tons of blood n graphic violence.

I gave this title 5 stars only, because it was bloody and violent (witch are expected from a horror movie by my standards) but to be frank it was rather a 2-3.What made me watch were the highly panegyric reviews it got. Sadly, after the firs hour or so made me realize I was badly thrown off.The script is a mess, almost as the writer was just putting it together without proof-reading it. The start and the middle act is poorly connecting with the rest of the material, and the time jump right before the final scenes is just baffling. But my main problem was the totally unrelated first 20 minutes, all that could have been solved in 5 minutes or less. And also the many time-robbing and often tedious scenes just made it too long and lumpish. At least 1/3 of the film should have never made it out of the editing room.I don't mind the stupid mistakes on anyone's side, as this is the way it works in many horror flicks. But this film does not deserve the attention and appreciation people grant it. This is not even as cruel as I hoped so, most of the killings, and deaths were seen at least a thousand times and there is not any surprise or new edge, it feels rather like some mixture of Hostel, The Devil's Rejects, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Død snø.Comparing this film to The Martyrs, À l'intérieur, Eden Lake, Salo or any deeply cutting flick is just a simple insult. Sadly this film lacks the element of 'wit' the other examples have.This may be one of the better French horrors but it is simply not a remarkable one. And I guess I won't be remembering it in about a week...

This movie was teetering on the edge of me hitting stop and walking away. There were just too many flaws with this.OK, first let me give a rundown of the plot. Set in France, some hoodlums committed a robbery and were trying to escape to Holland. Their plan was to meet at a certain rendezvous point to split their loot and do whatever else. It was at this rendezvouz point that bleep starts happening.No one, and I mean no one in this movie was a decent human being. The killers and the killed were all morally bankrupt. But alas, we definitely rank robbery above maiming and killing.This movie had way too much screaming. I'd say half the lines of the men and the women were "Aaaaaah". The main character screamed so much that I'd have to think she couldn't talk for days after each shoot. I think Godzilla is more intelligible.And I thought that megalomania was dead? How do you ensure a character has a second chance at life, or a legitimate shot to win a battle... have a killer who is a megalomaniac. Or, not even a megalomaniac, just one who loves to revel in the moment instead of just killing his/her avowed enemy.This movie definitely delivers on the stomach turning, but the bottom line is that there were too many cliché's in this movie. It was good for gore and shock and awe, but terrible for originality and otherwise distinguishing itself as a horror movie.

Trying to escape a local revolution, a group of thieves escape the city and arrive at a secluded motel in the countryside to regroup, only to stumble upon the sinister truth about the owners there and try to get out of the area alive.Overall, this was a very interesting if flawed effort as there's some great stuff here and some really troubling stuff. The troubling stuff isn't all that damaging yet features prominently in the film, mainly the fact that the film's several big action scenes are edited with the ultra-annoying and jarring quick-cut editing that renders the whole scene nearly impossible to make out, as if it had a chance with all the camera-jerking and shaking going on. This one, then, features both tactics during these scenes, and they're the big action chases so those are supposed to be the sequences you want to see, so it knocks itself down a bit for that. However, the rest of the film is highly entertaining and utterly enjoyable starting off with the introduction of the Nazi family which is pretty chilling given the relationship with the group, and their series of chases and confrontations are quite fun. As a bloodbath, it's got a lot to like as this one really lets it flow numerous times with it's graphic depictions of bodies getting torn open, dismemberments, decapitations and more, which are pretty realistic at times and generate a lot of fun. As well, there's some nice suspense at times included within, with one stand-out sequence where several victims crawl through an increasingly narrower tunnel guided only by a cigarette lighter and see they're being chased through by something or someone, and they're mixed nicely with the dirty, depraved goings-on to create a rather fun entry that happily stands among the good new French splatter-fests.Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity and a clothed sex scene.