Les affamés

The negative reviewers missed the nuanced point of this film. I am a huge dystopian post apocalyptic movie and zombie fan...and have seen most of them - even all the foreign ones. This one is refreshingly different, and I enjoyed it immensely, despite its flaws. It's not a film about surviving (such as The Walking Dead), but of just barely existing, and the tricks to the mind it plays.

The entire movie is filmed as if the viewer is in a mental dissociative dream state. Which you would be in a world such as this one. Far too many movies show unrealistic people who are always on their guard, never making mistakes, always able to survive with near super hero powers. Here we see real humans, who make inexplicable mistakes. However, this is a dissociative dream state world, we don't need the details, nor does what we see need to make any sense. There are no deep human relationships in this world...they have been destroyed. The allegory to our materialistic society is deeply amusing - as the afflicted show. There are also many realistic terrifying moments...usually quite fleeting (which makes them even more terrifying).

The musical score and photography are absolutely exquisite. The long creepy pauses, fog, deep forest, strange guttural screams, strange edits all add to a feeling of disassociation. The viewer becomes part of this surreal world. The suspense is found in the absolute quiet minimalism, the tiniest of sounds.

Too many negative reviewers whose movie goer experiences demand factual linear storytelling or action will not like this film. My take is it's an artful film I will watch several times again. Must see the reason for this dystopian world. It's alluded to after all the credits play. If you don't see it, you will never know why this world happened.

I feel this movie could fade away into the myriad of zombie images if I were not to write a passage down about it. It plays out something like an episode of The Walking Dead season IV where they're on the road again. It's altogether quite serious, and yet it has some slapstick dark comedy thrown in at unexpected moments. In its quiet, subtle way, it leaves some of the most haunting, ghostly imagery imprinted on the mind, something like of a recurring dream. As in The Cured (2017), it hints at maybe a sort of pack mentality or unconscious motive shared by the zombie horde. Is there a celestial theme also suggested by the strange furniture shrines erected? Maybe the best aspect of this movie are the unanswered questions, allowing us to vicariously live the anxiety of the protagonists.

I really liked this film. Its a very different take on the genre, with the emphasis on the need to be quiet to avoid attracting the zombies. Its a slow burn, but I think that helps build the tension, and it relies more on that than shock scares. The gore is minimal, but effective when used. It suggests there is more to the Zombies than just mindless eaters, but it doesn't really answer what. So it has a bit more brains in it (pun intended...) but is a good addition to the genre. Unlike many of the other Zombie films I've seen, most of which are over padded shorts.

The infected are confused and hostile they roam the land looking for healthy people to bite - this time with a French twist.

It is nice to have a change from the glut of U.S and U.K offerings; despite the obvious similarities in setup the style is definitely different.

Two groups of survivors do their thing: running, fighting, crying, dying. There are elements of dark humour and a few surreal moments that were welcomingly unexpected.

The film does become a bit stereotypical French artsy. Some of the shots of scenery are a bit long and strange - almost as if the director really wanted to do something more high-brow than a zombie movie.

This is fairly straight forward. Details of some of the zombie-law are left to the viewers discretion. The ending was too artsy and open for me.

If you have a lot of zombie films under your belt then sure give this a go. If you are fairly new to the genre then this may feel like a waste of your time and I would direct you towards the likes of "REC", "Carriers", "28 Days Later" or "Day of the Dead"

In a genre infected by too many bad to ueber-bad productions, Les affamés aka Ravenous is a solid entry - the execution is good enough, we get even a little gore here and there. No doubt, Les affamés aka Ravenous is no masterclass but a little snack-in-between for the lover of the zombie-apocalypse with infected crazies in that fast running way a la 28 Weeks Later.