Les affamés

The strength of this French language zombie film is that is relies on tension rather than action to produce thrills. Set on the Canadian countryside, a group of survivors are hunted by hungry zombies, creatures whose behavior at times eerily echoes of their previous consciousness. The story's rather small scale, the lack of a universal scope to this zombie apocalypse, gives it an intimate feel. And the silence of the rural setting, occasionally broken by zombies screaming, is as haunting as it is strangely moving.

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"

This one went straight under my radar and I simply hadn't heard of it, had it not been for a recommendation I may not have come across it at all.

A multi award winning French Canadian effort this could be compared to the 28 Days Later (2002) franchise. In that our antagonists are not zombies but arguably just feral people.

I was struck by the creators choice to have the movie filmed in French. Canadian movies rarely are and it seems like a baffling choice, surely they know that English would have made it more accesible and how many people do not like subtitles.

Thankfully I'm not one of them so despite this weird choice I gave it a go and was left rather undecided.

Without a doubt The Ravenous is a pretty film, the cinematography is fantastic as is the score that goes with it. It tells your usual story of a group of survivors doing everything they can to stay alive during this outbreak and the characters are interesting enough.

Sadly it comes across really rather dull. I didn't expect nor want wall to wall action, that's not the issue. The issue is it just comes across quite lifeless, almost like creators knew how to make a visually impressive film but didn't know how to tell a story.

The Ravenous isn't bad, it's just underwhelming and despite it's multiple award wins I think it's still a title that will only appeal to a certain type of moviegoer.

With its junior Walter White lead and unexplained confusing plot points this failed to impress.

The Good:

Beautifully shot

Well scored

The Bad:

Frustratingly dark in places

Leaves a tad too much to the imagination

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Musical instruments should be a no.1 priority during the apocalypse

I really wanted to like this. I was highly anticipating it, and it looked absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, while the score is very appropriate and the cinematography is beautiful, there's no other reason to watch this. There's no plot. No character development. There no reasoning for anything they do or for what happens. There is a lot of silence, standing around, and making bad choices, though.

Honestly, a huge disappointment for me.

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.