(A) Fronteira

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.

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!

If you like the slasher genre, specifically the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you'll like this. This film has the same atmosphere of dread, of bad things about to happen, of bad people on the way to do bad stuff. It takes a lot longer to get to the gory part, so don't be discouraged by the first 45 minutes or so of drama. Once the killing, maiming and screaming start they don't let up.

I found it to be considerably bloodier than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with about the same amount of suspense. There are a couple of moments when you're hoping the characters aren't really going to do what you just know they are going to do: those "ouch!" moments right before the bloodshed.

If you're tired of the slasher satire films and ready to get back to some old fashioned blood and gore, this one is for you.

Homage is a tricky thing–there is an extremely fine line in paying tribute to the cinematic works of others and merely ripping them off (hello, "Doomsday"!). And integrating a whiff of political commentary to give an aura of sophistication to what is, at heart, an unabashed splatter-fest, is even trickier (and much harder to pull of convincingly–see George Romero's "Living Dead" series). Despite how wobbly Xavier ("Hitman") Gens' blood-soaked "Frontier(s)" is in both of these departments, it comes out ahead due to its own maniacal, implacable energy; while prone to including too many monotonous chases that slow up (rather than quicken) the overall pace, there are scenes of such visceral savagery on display that it's hard to take your eyes off the screen. While some of the performances and characterizations veer dangerously close to camp, Gens comes close to establishing the same sort of fever-dream madness that made "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" so endearing: when an extreme right-wing candidate is elected to the French presidency, the citizens take to the streets in protest (the film's opening images are culled from actual news footage); using this as a cover, 5 small-time crooks knock off a bank and meet up at a countryside hostel that just happens to be run by several generations of an inbred, neo-Nazi family (including a patriarch that looks like B-movie king Roger Corman; and a sister who resembles Gen from The Genitortures); what ensues is a survival-of-the-luckiest chase through bowels-of-hell settings that have been well-established in the "Saw" and "Hostel" flicks. Gens also pulls (un)inspiration from the likes of "The Descent" (a fantastically claustrophobic tunnel-crawl; subhuman critters in underground caverns), "High Tension" (the beleaguered heroine spends the last 20 minutes wearing a literal coat of gore), and seemingly every one of the "Texas Chainsaw"s (coming closest to the family dynamic of Part III). While "Frontier(s)" spills its share of the red vino, it doesn't approach the level its reputation would lead you to believe–by comparison, the far more original "Inside" trumps this in terms of jaw-dropping carnage–but Gens instills his violence with such a brutally misanthropic tone that it comes across with more discomfort than catharsis. That being said, there is a bizarre appeal to our protagonists, probably because their initial crime and in-fighting becomes more forgivable in the face of the malevolent menace they bump up against; and the villains are grotesquely charismatic, forming an interlacing network of poison DNA and an undeniable (and undeniably perverse) sense of familial honor. "Frontier(s)" is messy, and certainly no masterpiece, but it makes for a diverting trip into the potential for genre extremity.

Frontier(s) is a fast-paced, very violent thrill-ride from Xavier Gens. While it won't be everyone's taste, for fans of full-on gruesome action it's a must. It's basically a very decent version of 'Hostel' with a couple of thugs on the run from riot-torn Paris who seek refuge at a seedy hotel, unbeknownst what lies ahead. It's not a great film by any means but it is a thrilling one. The lead actress did a great job, but there's also good stuff the actor who played Farid and the actor who played the meathead lunatic. Its style is slick, just what I enjoy watching. Fans of the genre will know what to expect, others may not. But I recommend 'Frontier(s) for a mind-f*ck of a night. ***/*****