Aux yeux des vivants

You know how, in slasher movies, people get knifed/cut down/etc and then get up and carry on fighting? Well, to get it out of the way, it's not really a spoiler to say there's a fair bit of that during the second half of 'Among the Living.'

That is the nearest I can come to any kind of criticism concerning a film that, from the pre-credits sequence until the final line, is terrific. Compelling. Weird. And violent! Three of the main players are 14 years of age, and their tender years gave me the feeling that things wouldn't get too grim. Happily I was wrong. Victor (Theo Fernandez), Tom (Zacharie Chasseriaud) and 'nerdy' Dan (Damien Ferdel) are three scamps skiving school. They visit an abandoned film lot - an excellent location for horror, and one I'm surprised isn't featured more often. They are enjoyable company and very well played. They witness frightening brutality from Klarence (Fabien Jegoudez), who is a truly frightening individual.

No-one gets through this film without receiving some sort of bloody graphic punishment, and the audience is given no clue as to who will survive and who won't. I had a great time with this subtitled French film and recommend it fully. My score is 8 out of 10.

The plot is that three young boys bunk off school on the last day of term and get up to some very anti social behaviour to while away the time. Then they happen upon a disused film lot/studio. What they do not know is that they have discovered the lair of two refuges from the real world and this 'family' do not welcome visitors, unless of course they have abducted them.

What follows is a fairly good watch. There are a few moments where the kids do the stupid thing, but then it gets into a thriller stride and becomes a better calibre of film. Also if you get miffed over bad police procedures being portrayed in film then this will wind you up no end. If Le Gendarmerie really behaved like this then they would all soon be looking for low rung security jobs.

This is not a splatter gore fest though there is some blood letting and the main 'evil person' is not really 'creature feature' scary either. Where it does score fairly well is in the suspense and the acting. All three kids do a really good job. So it does have flaws but if you ust sit back for the trip then this is a fairly passable effort. Original title was 'Aux yeux des vivants' and it is in French with sub titles.

2007's "Inside" was a taut, powerful horror/thriller , which tested the audience's endurance level for violence and shocks, particularly toward the usually out-of-bounds target of pregnant women.

Nothing in that movie would have made you anticipate that the filmmakers would follow it up with something as uninspired as this.

It's also surprisingly light on the violence, with nothing to really shock or surprise you.

The story is actually pretty simple, but is told in a confusing way, robbing it of all tension. It's something about three kids who skip school and stumble onto an abandoned movie set where they see someone disposing of a body. No one will believe them, of course, so they go home and find themselves under attack.

None of this elevated my pulse-rate. It certainly felt like it was supposed to, but the movie was too confusing and uninvolving to ever connect with me.

I said it was surprisingly light on violence and shock tactics. It's depressing that about the only such tactic this movie pulls out will not be shocking at all to anyone who has seen "Inside": a pregnant Beatrice Dalle (you guessed it) getting stabbed in the stomach.

It's the kind of movie that makes the previous movie by the same filmmakers seem like a fluke, like all the ideas they really have were covered completely in the first one.

I also think they had no idea how to handle a bigger budget; the cheaper cost of the first one kept things taut and effective and claustrophobic. Now, there's too many locations, too many characters, too little interest.

Today, directors Alexander Bustillo and Julien Maury returned to the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Films to introduce their newest effort, entitled "Aux Yeux des Vivants", which more or less translates in English as "Amongst the Living". Nearly everyone in the public was also present at this exact same spot a couple of years ago already, for the premiere of "À l'intérieur" a.k.a. "Inside", and thus we all knew to prepare for another potentially sickening and heart-wrenching horror film with explicit violence, disturbing atmosphere and nearly unendurable suspense. Bustillo and Maury are truly gifted and visionary young film makers who really understood the secret formula to genuinely terrifying and successful horror! They don't avoid any taboo subjects or sensitive themes and confront the viewers with their deepest fears and darkest nightmares. "À l'intérieur" entirely revolved on an extreme terror siege against a 9-months pregnant woman (with some of the cruelest torment sequences ever registered on film), while "Aux Yeux des Vivants" shamelessly handles about physically deformed children and shamelessly depicts uncompromising violence against innocent women and underage children. More importantly even, it's has been a very long time since I witnessed so many utterly intense and uncomfortable scenes of non-stop suspense. The usually always noisy and over-enthusiast crowd at the Brussels' Film Festival often turned very quiet and timid when gazing at some of the expanded and massively unnerving scenes where the young protagonists are stalked in their own houses. It's the last day of school before summer vacation and the troublesome trio Victor, Tom and Dan decide to leave early for a bit of exploring the countryside and committing a bit of random petty crimes like arson. They end up at the abandoned exterior film studios Blackwoods and witness how a masked figure drags a kidnapped woman out the trunk of a car and into an underground lair. We viewers already saw during the intro of the film that the studios might be the hideout place of what's left of a severely dysfunctional family. The boys return home and get punished for their acts by their parents, but that's nothing compared to the horror that awaits them later that night… The mysterious figure followed them home and plans to silence them forever. Strangely enough, quite a lot of the violence occurs off-screen, but still the suggestive terror and intense atmosphere is almost unbearable. I will, for example, always remember a specific scene featuring a ringing mobile phone and an icky clown's mask…Now that is what I call real horror! Bustillo and Maury are even so talented that they manage to make the oldest and most clichéd sentence in horror cinema history – "There is something under my bed" – still as petrifying as never seen before! And, for the sick puppies amongst you, don't worry too much about my remark regarding off-screen violence, as there still is plentiful of gore and bloodshed featuring on-screen as well. The three young protagonists give away remarkably stellar performances and they receive excellent support from more experienced French actors and actresses like Francis Renaud, Anne Marivin and Béatrice Dalle. Personally, I still regard "À l'intérieur" as slightly superior – mainly because the nature and motivation of villain is more realistic in this film – but "Aux Yeux des Vivants" is nevertheless also a must-see horror movie for the true and most courageous fans of the genre!

First of all I would like to say that I really love the work of Bustillo and Maury, they are really nice guys and really talented. Let's start with what is wrong and then with the good part :) I was really really disappointed with the rhythm of the movie... Seriously there must have been a huge problem during the writing of the script because there are many moments that are out of tempo, with the actors waiting in front of an immobile camera... It's almost unbearable. I think there has been a problem of preparation and nobody knew what to shoot on set. But there are many good points: the music, the photography, the acting (for a French movie it's exceptional), the "boogeyman". I am still looking forward new movies from these guys, but I hope these problems will be solved for the next one :)