Frontiers - Ai confini dell'inferno

Churned out by the New French Extremity Movement, a new wave of French horror responsible for extreme classics like High Tension, Inside & Martyrs, Frontier(s) arrives as another one of their features that aims to break all barriers of censorship or morality by exploiting every taboo subject that's available, but fails to achieve the same impact as its better counterparts.

Set during the violent aftermath of a political election in a near-future France, Frontier(s) concerns a gang of 4 young thieves who decide to run away from Paris with a bag full of robbed money in order to start a new life. While on their way, they decide to check-in at an inn near the border to spend the night but end up discovering that their hosts are actually a group of sadistic cannibals of a Nazi family.

Although the film offers sufficient amount of disturbing content over the course of its runtime, the plot isn't as effective or sturdy enough as it was in Inside or Martyrs, and it is pretty much a disappointment in every filmmaking department. What's even more absurd is the use of Nazi angle to justify its violence because Nazis are inhuman beings after all, by nature or by default.

Direction is a letdown, screenplay is an abomination, cinematography isn't that bad, characters are stupid, performances are over-the-top & violence is mercilessly brutal although not that effective. On an overall scale, Frontier(s) is a blood-soaked gore fest which happens to be political & psychotic at the same time but its poor execution of the available resources never really lets the story take off in the first place.

I'm assuming you haven't watched the movie already here, so I'm warning/telling you, that this movie will not be for the faint of hearted! It's a horror, it's shocking and it's explicit. But this all starts to happen about half an hour into the movie. So you kinda have learned (maybe even liked?) the characters. That might be a good thing, but it also means that all the pre-story gets thrown away after the mayhem begins ...

If you're looking for gore and terror, this is the only reason for you to watch this movie. There are quite a few scary passages, but there are also a few letdowns, story-wise mostly. The french again try to set a new high (or low, depending on your viewpoint) for gory movies!

One of a new wave of ultra-explicit French horror/thrillers, FRONTIERS is everything a gore-drenched thriller should be. Set in the near future, it sees the usual bunch of unsuspecting victims holing up in a remote hotel, where they find themselves at the mercy of a hillbilly family who make the Texas Chainsaw clan look like the Brady Bunch. What follows is an odyssey of bloody murder, torture and revenge, expertly directed by Xavier Gans.

I'm not really a fan of gore films per se. A lot of the horror films I love were made by Universal and Hammer, and of course these are considered tame by modern standards. But I don't mind gore when it's done right, as in the likes of HOSTEL, and it's certainly done right here too. We see brutal violence and punishment meted out to innocent victims before the tables are finally turned and the bad guys get their comeuppance, and that's just the kind of bloodshed I love watching. The film can hardly be applauded for originality but it certainly makes up for it in execution.

This is a taut, tense and extremely gruelling affair which barely lets you catch your breath from beginning to end. Gans' direction is adroit and the spare script allows the story to be told mostly through action rather than needless dialogue. The performances are decent for what is clearly a low budget film, and the special effects are, of course, grisly and spectacular, especially that saw scene. FRONTIERS is a film for movie-goers who like their horror full-blooded and gritty and it beats any Saw movie hands down.

Frontier(s) is a French horror film written and directed by Xavier Gens, also responsible for the computer game inspired film, Hit-man. The film begins in Paris with a group of criminals involved in a heist. As they are carrying out their robbery something goes wrong and it descends into chaos leading to the group splitting up and arranging to meet in a hostel out in the sticks. Unbeknown to the criminals the hostel owners are neo-Nazi degenerates with a hidden agenda, part of this agenda being the mutilation, torture and murder of their new guests.

Ultimately I did not warm to this film as I found it to have too many problems. Coincidently the first of which occurs in the very first few scenes of the film. These opening shots utilize frantic camera-work interlaced with rapid editing that both confuses and disorientates the viewer. On a personal note I find this method of film-making to be unnecessary especially when executed so poorly. This technique is superfluous, MTV-inspired and amateurish and does nothing but cheapen the film. The over arching feeling of the opening few scenes is that of the director trying his best to hurry the viewer or rather speed up the narrative in order to get us the "meaty" part of the film. In general the direction of the film was mediocre with dingy and overly stylized scenes, the final reels being a fine example of this.

Once the "meaty" part of the film arrives we are treated to some gruesome acts of violence and horrific forms of mutilation, which to give it its due are a lot more impressive than the film Hostel. When viewing Frontiers horror fans will notice the vast array of influences/rip-offs from the previously mentioned Hostel to The Hills Have Eyes, The Descent, Wrong Turn, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House of a 1000 Corpses, Blair Witch… etc etc! In fact it draws so heavily from other films a case for plagiarism could probably be made, some critics citing it as the 'French Chainsaw Massacre'. Although it seems obvious to draw comparisons with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Frontiers lacks the suspense of that film and the ingenuity of direction that was so wonderfully conveyed by Tobe Hooper. On the surface Frontiers appears to have been made by people that have seen a lot of horror films but have failed to grasp the concept of what makes them successful, something a lot of horror aficionados can do – and probably would do if they were given the same resources. Frontiers fails to further the genre or create anything new, instead it offers the same old "been here, seen it".

Essentially the film lacks identity and this is due to it feeling too much like a Hollywood film. Often fans of the genre turn to other countries for something new or fresh or for something that isn't available in their own culture, but with Frontiers this isn't offered. Being so Hollywood in its construction with its stylized death scenes and MTV School of directing it alludes to the possibility of a director that is using this film as a cleverly engineered stepping stone in his career, and given his next feature it seems to have paid off. Basically Frontiers is a film that shouldn't have left the drawing board The redeeming features for Frontiers are its violence and gore content as it does contain some memorable death scenes - but even here I still feel it's trying too hard to compete with the Saw franchise. There has been a market for this kind of violence with some referring to it as "Torture Porn" but perhaps mediocre films like Frontiers indicate that it's nearing an end. This notion is further supported by the fact the film lacks any originality or intellect – the fact it tenuously draws on recent French history and has a Sarkozy lookalike on TV doesn't qualify as intellect.

Finally, the manner in which the film has been made hints at a director that is clearly full of his own ego and if this were the case it would help to explain the shaky camera-work in the opening scenes as maybe whilst filming he's masturbating furiously at his deluded talent. I would recommend avoiding Frontiers if you like your horrors to be engaging but that maybe you'd enjoy it if you're only after high levels of violence and gore - just fast forward the first few scenes.

This is French horror at its sadistic best. House of 1000 corpses meets Hostel meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Relentless, fast paced action driven by sick/slick characters and by a moody, ominous, sepia-drenched camerawork that makes you want to pause and step out of the room for a breather. Gory but not gratuitously violent, this is Xavier Gens' tour de force, a claustrophobic gorefest of a movie that ranks up there with the best of the genre. Shame the director went from flop to flop after Frontier(s).