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Frontière(s) (2007)

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54 out of 90 people found the following comment useful :-
A shocking experience, 7 November 2007

Author: nakatomiplaza73 from Spain

I saw this movie at Sitges International Film Festival on October, 2007, and I am still trying to survive to the shock. I've seen lots of gore movies as I am a big fan of these kind of genre in cinemas, but I hardly remember something so cruel, so brutal, so anti-human, so dirty and so extreme. It's one of those movies that you must not see with your girlfriend, otherwise you're exposed to have a deep argument about your film tastes. So you are on your own, if you have the chance to take a glimpse to this movie, don't hesitate. It's, by far, one of the most thrilling experiences in the land of gore movies for about the last 10 years.

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24 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Effective flick especially if you know about recent riots in France, 23 April 2008

Author: cinaphile from Detroit

It's not often you need an overview of recent European history to fully enjoy a horror movie. But Frontier(s) is a special case. All the negative commentary I've read seems to come from the hype surrounding this film. Is Frontier(s) blood-soaked and violent? Sure is! Is it the bloodiest, most repulsively gory film ever? No. I also agree that the basic plot doesn't really venture too far off the path of Hostel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Motel Hell for that matter. But what some people seem to be missing is socio-political climate of France in the last few years. Well, here's where a short French history lesson may come in handy. In October and November of 2005 there were a series of large-scale riots in France that stemmed from the death of two teenagers who lived in a low-income suburb of Paris. They were suspected of a break-in at a construction site and being chased by police. When they tried to hide in a power substation they were electrocuted. The civil unrest that broke out was fueled by unemployment, religious tensions, racial inequality and a growing fear of police harassment. A little over two years later more riots broke out when two more teenagers died after a police car collided with their stolen motorbike. These recent events give Frontier(s) a healthy dose of sub-text as well as a realistic backdrop for its extreme violence. Fear and intolerance are now right beside baguettes and berets as France's main cultural identity. The France seen in Frontier(s) isn't the glossed up version most of us have dreamily romanticized. There are no midnight walks on the Seine. No sipping of espresso at a sidewalk café with the Eiffel Tower in the distance. No scenic tours of the Louvre or the Arch de Triomphe. Writer/director Xavier Gens shows a modern day France that's dark, violent and in anarchy. This is the France that in 2004 banned the wearing of khimars (headscarves) by Muslim girls at school and in 2007 elected Nicolas Sarkozy — a right-wing conservative — as president. So it should be no surprise that Gens' choice of a Nazi family as the bad guys works as a not so subtle metaphor for the French Government. So, for what it's worth, anyone too myopic to know something about France's current environment probably just won't get what Gens is saying in this film.

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23 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
French Kiss .... The Extreme Kind!, 8 April 2008

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

The French seemingly can't be beat when it comes to visceral, savage and in-your-face sadistic survival/torture porn flicks lately. Since "High Tension" skyrocketed the popularity of the horror genre in 2003, this nation already delivered a couple of ultimately brutal movies that – without the slightest form of exaggeration – make U.S. films "Saw" and "Hostel" look like soft and sentimental Disney cartoons. The more or less simultaneously released "à l'intérieur" (a.k.a. Inside) thus far remains the absolute highlight of shocking controversy, but this "Frontière(s) surely ain't no Saturday afternoon picnic, neither. The rudimentary concept is a variation on the infamous mid-70's sub genre of 'Rednecksploitation'. These films revolved on maniacal hillbillies terrorizing and butchering big city folks in rural areas far away from the civilized world and usually strictly for their own sheer entertainment. Considering the high population density all across the European continent, it would be pretty ridiculous to introduce unworldly rednecks and so Xavier Gens' script cleverly replaces them with extremist cartels. There are several of those around here, including fanatic minions of Hitler's Nazi principles. The city of Paris is in complete chaos following the announcement of the election results, and a bunch of young thugs grabs this opportunity to commit a bank robbery and flee towards the French-Luxembourgian border. They arrive in a place far worse than the Parisian suburbs when checking into a hotel run by a deeply deranged family of Nazis. The family, led by an elderly patriarch who easily could have been one of Hitler's closest drinking buddies, need the girl for breeding reasons and subject the men to various games of sickening torture.

Admittedly "Frontière(s)" sounds like a compilation of gratuitous gore and perverted characters, but writer/director Xavier Gens definitely had some more admirable ambitions. Extreme right-wing political parties unstoppably march forward in pretty much each European country (in fact, their victory triggered the whole chain of events here), and Gens actually attempts to illustrate – albeit quite vigorously – what the consequences would be if they regain power one day. Anyway, you obviously shouldn't watch this movie for its valuable morality lesson, but rather because it vividly depicts hardcore violence and uncompromising cruelty. Unless you have nerves of steel and a properly insulated stomach, you might want to consider turning your head away from the screen most of the time. There's a truly nauseating massacre involving a mechanical band saw, various close range shotgun killings, slit throats, stabbed chest and one excruciatingly uncomfortable moment featuring pliers and someone's Achilles tendon. Yikes! Vile, revolting and totally unnecessary? Perhaps … but definitely fascinating to behold. "Frontière(s)" suffers a bit from messy cinematography and limited imagery, but at the same time you could claim this also increases the primitive and savage atmosphere Gens intended to reflect. The film is definitely a bit too long for its own good (110 minutes of running time for a sickie film?) and some of the redundant sub plots and character drawings during the first half hour could easily have been cut. The make-up effects are simply great and Xavier Gens' surefooted directing skills already bought him a one-way ticket to a promising career in Hollywood.

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19 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Lives not closely up to the hype, 31 March 2008

Author: dschmeding from Germany

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Damn, after really good french movies like A L'interieur and High Tension I was really eager to see Frontieres from reading all the positive reviews. The movie starts out kind of different with political riots and some kids who seem to have stolen money in the hassle. After some dramatic departure of one gang member they flee and split up to meet at the border to go to the Netherlands. The first two take a break in a hostel (Yeah, Hostel everyone!) where they soon meet some strange backwoods girls and a butcher guy... after some uninspired sex with the girls the action breaks loose just waiting for the other 2 to arrive You can pretty much guess what happens... like in a million other movies they were killing tourists for years (clicheed pictures of boxes full of cellphones and passports and abandoned cards hint to that like in Wrong Turn etc.). Its exactly the old TCM Theme with a real messed up family which in this case happen to be the followers of some cliché Neonazi who talks a real fake mix of french and German. You get some violence and torture and like the french love it the only girl turns out to be the toughest of the gang. The cinematography is nice, the acting is OK, the gore is kind of average considering that we live in the age of torture-porn Saw/Hostel movies and the violence is not as over the top as I expected. What bothered me about Frontieres is the strange pacing... the movie is way to long and beginning and end are strangely torn by some cheesy dramatic elements (the female main actor real overacts the last sequences... it seemed way off to me how they were all permanently crying in this movie or telling each other how the love them). The main part of the movie is stretched and seems kind of random in how the family story is implemented. Its just puzzled together with a decrepit slobbering grandma, then some deformed children in the basement, Nazi Daddy and the obligatory good character in form of a seemingly sick girl who lends a helping hand in the backwoods mess. Most of this stuff is just thrown in, dropped off and doesn't work as creepy as e.g. the family story in TCM2 but rather seems like a patchwork of loose ideas. Frontieres is not a bad movie but it suffers from a kind of stylistic inconsistency that throws it from drama to hostel-horror to weird action-style shootouts and back to drama. I am a friend of movies that try to break the genre boundaries but this one didn't quite work. I think A L'interieur did that way better. If you just rent this for he violence you can fast-forward this but you won't see anything you haven't seen in other movies before... OK, maybe I never saw a messed up girl in such a bloody bloody white dress but the whole idea was there ... in other french movies of the recent past. Overall a rather average movie that obviously stole too many ideas from here and there.

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24 out of 42 people found the following comment useful :-
Brutal and savage French horror., 21 March 2008

Author: HumanoidOfFlesh from Chyby,Poland

"Frontieres" by Xavier Gens plays like the berserk and utterly deranged French version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Hostel" with the family of bloodthirsty Neo-Nazis instead of stereotypical redneck crazies.The violence with the exception of the great and gory band saw scene is rather suggestive and wasn't explicit with the camera panning away or jump cutting almost all the gory bits.Still "Frontieres" is a very intense and visceral experience that will surely please the most hardcore horror fans.The killings are pretty brutal in their extremity,the acting is fine and some scenes are incredibly intense.I enjoyed the music in this flick,which was excellently blended into the action.The plot goes like that:running from Paris the group of youths end up taking refuge at a run-down motel on the Luxembourg border presided over by the Von Geisler family and is thrown into bloody nightmare.The two older "sisters" entice the guys with a vigorous foursome while the marginally less depraved youngest girl-plucked from her real family years earlier to be a breeding vessel for this one-assists our heroine when she is eyed up as representing new blood to continue the family line.9 out of 10.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Shocking, 10 August 2008

Author: kosmasp

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!

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8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the better installments in the modern torture trend, 1 May 2008

Author: Anthony Pittore III (Shattered_Wake) from Los Angeles, CA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Continuing in the NEVER-ending string of Eli Roth-induced torturefests, France brings us 'Frontière(s).' I don't like Eli Roth, and I REALLY don't like Eli Roth-wannabes, but some of the torture flicks have been better than others. 'Frontière(s)' fits in the 'better than the others' category, I guess, but I have some problems with it. One thing that can often ruin a film for me is a lack of likable characters. Even worse is when a film tries to make me like the unlikable. In this film, the world is evenly split between thieves and Nazis. Well, hell, that's not going to work for me! I don't like thieves, for obvious reasons. But Gans tries to make me like them. . . Why should I? Because one's female & pregnant? Because another is sweet and quiet and doesn't want to mess around with the women? They're still criminals! If I had to choose, sure, I'd rather root for a couple of robbers than a family of disgusting genocidal cannibals. But, 'lesser of two evils' doesn't make you any less bad. Speaking of disgusting, at what point in the Nazi control of Europe did Hitler start surrounding himself with disgusting cannibal hicks in the backwoods of France (or anywhere)? Anyway, there are quite a few positives behind the annoying negatives. For one, violence and gore is abundant, hence the NC-17 rating. Is it NC-17-worthy? I don't think so. I've seen much of the violence in other R-rated films, and there was no sex (except a brief dry-humping scene) and only a brief topless shot of the 'heroine.' It honestly feels more like the 'unrated cut' of an R-rated film, which would include some 'never-before-seen shocking new footage!' In addition to the violence, there are some genuinely frightening scenes, like the claustrophobic-to-the-max 'tunnel scene' (which I believe will stand out as a shining moment in recent horror) and the first look at the freezer. Technically speaking, the direction and cinematography were quite good, often reminding me of a '28 Days Later...'-esquire film. The writing, well. . . hard to tell how good or bad it was, as the subtitles in my copy seemed like they were written by someone with only the slightest knowledge of the English language, and I had to constantly translate from 'Broken English' into something more logical.

To wrap up, I have a feeling this film could've been the 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' of the new generation, because it took the 'torture' trend and added a more interesting plot behind it other than 'hot teens on vacation run into trouble.' However, due to some poor execution, it will probably only be remembered by those who are big into the genre. Although, I say again, the 'tunnel scene' does have a strong chance of making it into the next edition of 'Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.'

Overall, a 7/10.

-AP3-

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A Cool Horror Film, 5 June 2008

Author: Dragoneyed363 from United States

I wasn't the least bit excited, nor was I totally dreading watching this film.It just seemed like a cheap thriller that didn't thrill at all, and I wasn't expecting much.Boy, was I definitely wrong.This movie is nothing but thrilling from start to finish.The blood and gore was grisly, and the action was cool and suspenseful.There was a handful of flaws with this film though, and I did predict something that happened in the story line.Overall, I wouldn't say this is the strongest of the Afterdark Horrorfest films, but it is definitely "NOT" the weakest, and I recommend it to all horror lovers, because it was worth watching, and I found a lot of material fresh and new.

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12 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Above average horror/slasher antics, 3 May 2008

Author: slake09 from Silver Lake, Ohio, USA

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.

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14 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Chainsaw on steroids, 12 September 2007

Author: doug-697 from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this movie at the Toronto International Film Festival and love it. But it won't be to all tastes, to say the least. Will you like this movie? Did you like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original not the remake)? If you did, this is like Chainsaw on steroids. Like Chainsaw the movie brings you into the personal horror of it's victims. It's not voyeuristic or prurient like Hostel. It's extremely violent, but you are clearly hoping the victims will escape. Hostel wants you to enjoy the suffering. In Hostel, suffering is the entertainment. In this movie the entertainment is the threat and attempt at escape from the suffering.

Also, the opening of this movie is one of the best openings I've ever seen in any movie. It has an energy that's astonishing and it actually got applause from the audience. Objectively, it may even be the best part of the movie.

This movie is just amazing gross-out fun. The proverbial roller-coaster ride.

This is a French movie that I saw with sub-titles. I hope it gets North American distribution and it should. It would work well either sub-titled or dubbed.

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