Frontier(s)
Manufacturer : Lions Gate
Rating : 4.0
Reviews : 54
Price :
Order Now
Genre: Foreign Film – FrenchRating: UNRelease Date: 13-MAY-2008Media Type: DVD
Manufacturer : Lions Gate
Rating : 4.0
Reviews : 54
Price :
Order Now
Manufacturer : Lions Gate
Rating : 4.0
Reviews : 54
Price :
Order Now
5 Comments
The first time I watched “Frontiers”, going in with these huge expectations, I was not only amazed (and somewhat appalled) at what I was watching, but how the film had surpassed the hype. I was genuinely shocked at what was unfolding before me. “Frontiers” is horrendous, but in a truly positive sense. It’s hateful, and brutal, and violent, and anti-human. But I loved it! I was so happy I had bought the DVD from Amazon instead of renting it.
Last night I re-watched it with three of my friends, none of which had heard of the movie and who barely knew the plot other than what I vaguely explained while the commericials were rolling. At the end one of my friends was crying, and she couldn’t even tell me why. Another said he didn’t feel like doing anything, that he was emotionally-drained and felt like going to bed, while the last one said she felt “weird” and for the rest of the night remained silent. Without exaggeration… that’s how powerful and gritty this film is.
Some bash it for being derivative of things such as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Hills Have Eyes” and even “House of 1000 Corpses”, and while there are parallels and I cannot fault them for saying so, the movie does what it does very well (better than those three installments) and I think it was more of a homage to those other quality horrors.
It’s fair to say when watching a movie with such a shock factor involved, things like acting and direction fall leeway; taking up the passenger seat and letting the violence lead. Such is not the case in “Frontiers”. The acting on all levels is great, even stupendous in a few cases — each character adding his or her own little bit to the story and cranking up the believability. Katrina Testa as Yasmine deserves mad props especially, during the film’s second half her acting is just so raw and real you want to hug her and never let go.
The characterization is great. Before the craziness sets in the film devotes a good 30 minutes or so to acquainting us to the characters and really making you like them. This makes what eventually happens to them all the more devastating.
The cinematography is very crisp and fresh — especially notable during the opening scene. It captures the bleak atmosphere of the film beautifully, to the rolling hills of the France-Luxembourg boarder to the depths of the Von Geisler chambers.
I feel like I’m rambling, and quite honestly I feel at the same time I have not written enough of how AWESOME this movie is.
All lengthy paragraphs aside, and if you can stomach brutality — watch, buy, love “Frontiers”.
10/10
I’m going to be totally honest, so you know where this review is coming from:
#1) I am not a fan of blatant movie remakes. When I say blatant, I mean anything that has the exact title of the old classic they are remaking, to the movie that changed the name, but rips off so much from another movie they might as well have called it a remake. This year’s Frontier(s) is the latter.
#2) I do not like subtitles. It’s not because I don’t like to read, I just find that I am not experiencing the movie entirely because sometimes I am making the choice to either catch either the text or the visuals out of the corner of my eye as I focus on the other. I guess it would help if I just studied all the languages so I could watch movies without subtitles, but I’m just too lazy. Movie-dubbing usually doesn’t do the trick either, so it’s a lose-lose situation for me. Frontier(S) is a French flick, therefore it uses subtitles.
Frontier(s) is a horror film that follows four criminals who rob something(they don’t tell us what, but there’s a big sack of money with them and the police are after them) during a series of political riots after a conservative regime takes over in Paris, France. They split up and flee to the country-side, and arrive at a hostel that, to their surprise later, is run by a family of cannibalistic Nazis, the leader of the family, Le Von Geisler, probably being ex-Gestapo. They find this out the hard way. Through a series of ordeals that brings new light to the term “dog eat dog world” and busloads of blood, the characters learn that even outside of society there is corruption and greed, and purity is in the eye of the beholder.
The gore in this movie is exceptional. From a normal gun-shot blowing apart someone’s hand to the beautiful use of a table-saw, the blood is strewn with a Frontier(s) bloody image shotgunheavy brush. It is so gruesome that the producer of the movie, After Dark Films, had to pull it from their After Dark Horrorfest series because of an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. It was either that or edit it a bit. I think they made the right choice.
The story and symbolism is quite good too. Although it is a horror movie, it is an intelligent horror movie, besides the TCM rip-off, which I will get to later. Of course a Nazi would be hiding out in the middle of nowhere in France, having his family kill impure visitors and eat their flesh. Of course the family would be inbred. Of course the only law in the area happens to be the eldest son of the family, negating any sense of justice for outsiders. All of this, and it works. By the end of the movie, the farce that this family has concocted is just as real as the real world, where politicians are corrupt and using people to their whim. Heavy-handed? A bit, but at least it has more of a brain then the usual slasher movie.
The problems of free use of elements from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre start once we get to the hostel, and they don’t stop until close to the end. Instead of a feeble old man being fed at the dinner table(grandpa in TCM), we have the family’s mother, who is actually spitting out the food(we find out what it is made of later on.) We also have the family police officer, the only law-man in this party of the country, blocking off the road to their house to make sure they don’t have party-crashers as they hunt down these kids. He’s like R. Lee Ermey from the TCM remake, without the comedic twist.
The greatest massacre to a horror figurehead is Goetz, the French Leatherface of the film. He plays the executioner/butcher beautifully, but he acts way too much like Leatherface, even without a chainsaw. The most annoying point is when he is chasing two of the criminals in a car, yelling and squealing like a pig, just like Leatherface. The problem is, Goetz speaks fluent French, unlike Leatherface who can only grunt and squeal. It seems too forced. They could have Goetz looking like a wild dog without giving him a transcription of Leatherface monologues. Maybe I’m being too harsh.
All in all, this movie is worth a rental at least. The political intrigue and human interaction are worth experiencing, as well as the buckets of blood
after viewing the film…my thoughts were: wow, this was a really good horror film. The acting was very good, believable (especially the lead actress); the emotional tension / visual blood scenes / physical violence were mixed together well. I even liked the soundtrack, which fit perfectly to create a sense of unease.
the plot is somewhat reminiscent of the recent (2003) re-make of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. (Group of young people get trapped in an isolated area by a family of psychotics). Also had a few plot elements of “Hostel”.
I thought the various fight / conflict scenes between the characters was well-done- the sound effects, level of violence, and misery was felt at the gut-level as a viewer.
My only complaint: the first part of the film (first 20 minutes) wasn’t really needed, and could have been cut out of the film. Rest of the film flows very well.
pleasant surprise that horror fans will appreciate..
If you don’t speak or understand French fluently, have no fear. Do what I did and watch Frontier(s) without all of the distracting subtitles, and you’ll enjoy the gore and cool action all the same. Yea, just turn the subtitles off altogether. You don’t need words to explain what you’ll be pleasantly shocked to see. You’ll get it, trust me. Yet another wise buy from the folks at Amazon. Thanks.
this is one of the better horrorfest movies . if I was just rating the horrorfest I would probably give this 5 stars but as an over all movie I have seen better horror films . if you wanna go on blood alone this is a 5 star movie but as far as it being scary I would give this a 1 star . it was a good movie and worth watching but there were some parts that drug on (like the first 30 min of the movie) and it was all subtitled . I can watch movies that are subtitled , some of them are very good (like Pan’s Labrenth and the Orphanage) but for some reason it was if it went to fast and you payed more attention trying to keep up with the reading it took your focus away from some of the movie . I payed $7 for this movie and it was worth it . when you watch this movie just keep in mind that this is one of the horrorfest movies , if you like the horrorfest collections then you will probably like this .