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Studio:Optimum Home Entertainment

Director:Xavier Gens

Cast: Karina Testa, Aurelien Wiik, Patrick Ligardes, David Saracino, Maud Forget

Running Time:104 minutes

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- Incredible film. Loved it.

Frightfest banned it, Optimum didn't know whether to release it or not, the critics weren't keen, but one thing's for sure: We LOVE it!

The makers of Switchblade Romance have done it again! Frontiers is possibly an even more powerful 'endurance test' than last year's remake of Funny Games. Ultimately, Frontiers is made for you to pause the film for a second, take a deep breath and ask yourself, 'Why am I still watching this?'

The story plays out just like your average Friday night horror flick: A group of kids get into some trouble whilst rioting at the latest presidential election... soon enough, after deciding to take a run for it, they all end up staying at a creepy old hostel run by a large family of uncompromising Nazi cannibals...

...And thank God! For once! It's as good as it sounds!

Beautifully shot, expertly crafted and brilliantly acted, Xavier Gens -director of the more recent Hitman- has served up for us something quite special: Frontiers is a shocking, brutal, emotionally draining and immensely powerful piece of horror cinema. It demands to be seen, and at this price it's hard to resist!


(P.S- To those who are frightened of subtitles: It's French. Also: Stunning cover art!)

- Bloody Brilliant Horror

Was quite apprehensive about watching this film at first because of the cannibalism, blood and gore, but so glad i did as it's bloody brilliant, yes another great French horror. To put it short........... It starts off with these people escaping the police after their awful attempt at a robbery. Anyway, they all end up split up from each other through various reasons so some of them book into this remote hostel in the middle of nowhere(to meet up with the other's later)................Little do they realise that the hostel is actually run by a family of neo-nazi cannibals! I watched this film after watching Martyrs (which i found deeply disturbing the woman getting constantly beaten)so was nicely supprised how i personally thought this film was so much better. If you can handle blood and gore, want action all the way through from a bunch of complete pscho's then this is the film for you............I would definately recomend it!

- French new wave horror

French new wave horror has become the edgiest and most brutal produced around the world. Now from the makers of Switchblade Romance comes this 2007 shocker from writer/director Xavier Gens Frontiers(s). During a not to distant French presidential election a gang of small time crooks goes on the run after a failed robbery. Seeking refuge in a seedy hostel deep in the middle of nowhere where their hoists turn out to be a family of degenerate neo-Nazi cannibals. Here they are subjected to all kinds of extreme mutilation and torture. I hate to admit that I loved every blood thirsty minute of this brutally shocking masterpiece.

- Well, having this one certainly would have upgraded Horrorfest 2007 big time

By the time "Frontier(s)" was over my teeth really hurt. That was because I kept clenching them during the moments in this French horror film (the correct spelling of which would be "Frontière(s)"). This 2007 film is being promoted as the ninth of the 8 films 2 die 4 for last year's After Dark Horrorfest, because when it earned an NC-17 rating in the States it had to be pulled from the lineup. So it has the whole vibe of being too much horror for Horrorfest, which means the expectations are pretty high when you sit down to watch this one. On the other hand, the second crop of Horrorfest films were rather disappointing so you figure this one has to be an improvement, and the good news is that it certainly delivers. I am not the sort to close my eyes while watching the gory parts of movies (although I did close one of them in sympathetic reaction to the opening game of "Saw II"), which is why I went the clenched teeth part. A bad case of the measles as a child took out some of the calcium in my permanent teeth, so I am surprised some of them did not crack.

France is in the throes of some political upheaval having to do with the election of a hard line government, and while a century ago this might have sent young people to the barricades, in these trouble times they turn to crime. With the cops on their trail they decide to hole up in this filthy little bed and breakfast. This, of course, turns out to be a really bad mistake, and while the victims are not deserving of our sympathy on the basis of their characters, they are the hope of the future compared to their tormentors. There is really nothing more to say in laying out the plot, because you should just enjoy the ride, if you sense of the word "enjoy" encompasses what happens in this film. The film breaks down into three acts and how much you like the movie will probably come down to whether you think the final act tops the second.

Writer-director Xavier Gens ("Hitman") gets the credit for coming up with all this sick stuff, but credit also goes to cinematographer Laurent Barès, who gives the film is visual style, and especially film editor Carlo Rizzo, who crafts some moments of bizarre beauty through his creative use of montage. A few horror films of recent vintage have attempted to be "arty," and "Frontier(s)" certainly has some moments where you can argue it is cinema rather than just a horror movie.

The obvious cinematic touchstone here is supposed to be "Hostel," but I was reminded more of the original version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." You will pick up echoes from a lot of other films, but it speaks to the film that I never got the feeling this was a pastiche. I still think "Wolf Creek" is at the top of the list for the torture-porn genre, although I am sure I have not seen everything that is out there. But "Frontier(s)" is closer to that than it is to the "Hostel" movies or "The Saw Trilogy," where there are mystery element in play that divert your from the blood, guts, and whatnot. This is just one of those bloody movies where you wait to see if anybody is going to get out alive.

All I can say now is: What a difference a movie makes. "Frontier(s)" was replaced in the Horrorfest 2007 lineup by "Unearthed," which means that what would have been my highest rated one of the 8 films 2 die 4 was replaced by the one I rated the lowest (although you have to grant that they were right not to have included "Unearthed" in the first place). The original Horrorfest lineup earned an average rating of 3.7 from me and this year's were a step lower at 3.0; but replace "Unearthed" with "Frontier(s)") and the average jumps to 3.4. I had sworn that next year I would rent the Horrorfest movies rather than go ahead and buy them when they came out on DVD (we did not get the festival the second time around), but I am glad I saw enough of the buzz about "Frontier(s)" to go ahead and pick it up. The only real complaint is that there are no DVD extras. Final Note: I wonder if the people behind the After Dark Horrorfest have noticed that their best flicks are being made in foreign lands, because that's certainly what has happened so far.

- Nazis really are this revolting.

This is a great though brutal horror film, a must for fans of the "Texas Chainsaw" series and its derivitives, as it features a number of obvious similarities. The strange, inbred family living in the middle of nowhere who destroy and consume human victims. The abundance of gore, guaranteed to please those who enjoy such things, as well as some contemporary arty directorial touches. The labyrinthine house with its multitude of cellars, corridors, dark corners, tunnels and nasty hidden surprises. And a contemporary social and political twist which was rather unexpected, too. This is a point that most reviewers seem to ignore, so I thought I'd redress the balance with this critique (and to be honest, the plot can really be summed up in one line).

The sick and twisted family of cannibals is almost a microcosm of the National Socialist state - the deranged, fanatical Fuhrer (the father) - the retarded bully boy (Hans) - the cruel, sadistic embodiment of the SS, the right arm of the Fuhrer (Carl) - the women press-ganged into furthering the Fuhrer's obscene breeding program to perpetuate a "master race", which brings to mind the Lebensborn. The cellars with their abundance of dead and rotting bodies, cast aside, their purpose served, bring to mind the atrocities of war and extreme ideologies. Like certain governments, the Father believes that anybody can be forced to do anything if they are beaten and shouted at enough. Of course, the heroine of the piece resists, refusing to partake in their "family rituals" and join her captors as a surrogate daughter/wife/sister. This aspect of the film brought to mind another bleak and quite horrible horror picture, the British-made "Mum and Dad" with its horrible exaggeration of the modern nuclear family - in a sense yet another twist on the classic "The Hills Have Eyes".

The racialsm element is downplayed, but is still prevalent enough to be unsettling when it arises. It's to his credit that the actor playing the Father makes his comparatively small part so memorable, and repulsive. He plays the role of the strict patriarch and the "little Hitler" with superlative loathing. We don't need a horror movie to remind us that Nazis and fascism are vile and disgusting, but perhaps in the light of certain controversial election results, some people are in need of such unsubtle hints.

That the victims and heroines of this film are of mixed race/ethnic minorities makes the political angle even more visceral. Of course, we can't forget that the victims are really bank robbers on the run - violent ones at that - but if they're fighting against a dictatorial right-wing government, can they really be that bad? Coming from France, a country with a bloody history of extreme governments, the political and social satire element cannot be cast aside. Real French politicians today condemn ethnic minorities in "les banlieues" as "scum" - France's cruel colonial past coming home to roost - and in 2006, even the national football team was criticized for containing so many "Blacks and Islamics". This is a subtext that may be lost on a lot of UK viewers who don't appreciate what life is like in the inner cities in France and the attitudes of fascist politicians towards their own citizens. In one sense, you could view this movie as a grotesque genre spin-off of another classic of modern French cinema, "La Haine" - an equally nihilistic yet exhilerating view of "poor angry youths versus fascists".

The ending, for me, says it all - running from one gang of bloodsucking, devouring fascists into the hands of another. This is a well-crafted picture which goes beyond its expected genre limitations, though I did feel that more could have been made of the whole pregnancy subplot, which I kept expecting to have more significance before the end.