Wednesday, March 23, 2022

THEM (2006)

 

(a.k.a. ILS; directors/screenwriters: David Moreau and Xavier Palud).


Review

Plot: Creep-about sadists toy with a couple in their isolated country home.

Based on real-life Romanian murders (a couple was stalked and killed by three teenagers), THEM is a promising French thriller that goes quickly awry. The lead actors’ performances are great, even real reactions sometimes (actress Olivia Bonamy, claustrophobic in real life, crawled through narrow tunnels). The set-up pre-terror scenes are well-written, there’s palpable sense of isolation and unease throughout the film, but the all-flight-little-fight characters are dumb, even for a stalk-torture-kill film. At several points, they could’ve easily finished off a killer or two after knocking them down, but what do they do? They run. After the second time, I stopped caring about the characters, knowing how this was likely to go. More than an overlong hour later, it finally happens. . . all style, little substance, with a great, bleakly hilarious end-shot of one of the main characters.


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