Them (Ils)

(2007) ***1/2

This little (77 minutes) French horror flick from last year grabs you by the throat in the first few minutes, and then never really lets up on the tension the whole way through.

The plot involves a French teacher living abroad in Bucharest, Romania, where she has gone to take a job at a prestigious private French high school. Along with her is her deadbeat aspiring novelist boyfriend, who hangs out all day writing (or playing pinball on his laptop) at the decaying country mansion they've rented outside the city. Clearly the idea is that Euros go pretty far in the backwards former Eastern bloc. I liked the early shots of Bucharest--maybe my first glimpse of the city on film--and I think there's definitely some Eastern Europe cultural fear going on here. But to delve into that too far would give away a key "twist" at the end, so I'll just leave that thought undeveloped.

The film takes place all in one Friday night, as a group of "them" terrorize the couple with variously escalating invasions, frights, and assaults. Most of the movie deals with the couple scrambling around to different rooms in the big old empty house trying to stay alive and get the fuck out of Dodge.

The good news here is that there are lots of lots of genuine scares, especially in the first hour or so. The directors keep us in the dark as to who is doing the terrorizing, and this leads to some creepy anticipation. Also, the lead actress, Olivia Bonamy is great--you buy both her panic AND her determination when she pulls shit together the way lead chicks in horror movies always do.

I only have two moderate complaints, but they're big enough to keep this from climbing into 4 or 5 star range. First, as well done as this is, it really is stuff we've all seen before: "They're in the house?!" "The phone is dead!" "There go the lights!" This isn't necessarily a horrible thing, though, as they do this pull this fare off better than it's usually done, but still, in the back of your mind, you're recognizing it all as derivative (even while clenching your teeth).

And second, I felt like as we get a clearer picture of who is doing all this shit to them, the horror diminishes somewhat. Ultimately, I think the more we get to see the bad guys, the less scary they seem. For one thing, they die really easily! How scary is it when the kill ratio in a horror movie is 3-0 Good Guys till near the end? This of course builds up to the final credits where it's revealed that these murders really did take place in Romania a few years ago, and it was all just...

On second thought, I won't totally spoiler the ending, as this is definitely a fun and scary horror flick worth checking out, even with my two complaints.