Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Stars Karina Testa, Aurélien Wiik, Patrick Ligardes, David Saracino, Maud Forget,
Samuel Le Bihan, Chems Dahmani, Amélie Daure, Estelle Lefébure | Written by Xavier Gens
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 108 minutes | Directed by Xavier Gens
Xavier Gens, the man behind the ordinary but fast-paced and aggressive Hitman, is coming to DVD in the UK this week with something that truly shows what this modern day dungeonkeeper has to throw at us.
Frontiers starts off in a post-election suburb of Paris in the midst of race riots. Amid the hullabaloo a robbery is taking place and it's here that we meet our main characters, a group of downtrodden city folk out to make some cash. The robbery is a well-crafted bit of stylised violence which leads nicely to the hellish ordeal that will follow, for as they flee into the country they have no idea of what awaits them: a family of sadistic neo-Nazi cannibals.
OK, I know it sounds formulaic already, and the truth is there's very little that's original about this film, but that doesn't detract too much. The constant barrage of pain, torture and killing is a gleeful, adrenaline-fuelled journey through every type of killing we've seen (and enjoyed) in this movie's horror/slasher forefathers. The elderly Nazi father and his crazy, fat butcher son have overtones of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the small-headed guy from Red Dragon while the other characters come from a myriad of other influences. But whereas some films look a lot like they're just following a tried and tested format, this one feels like Gens has osmosed the delights of those that came before and is more than happy to draw on them to pack his own feature with ample action.
For all of the weird and worrying deaths he manages to incorporate (my personal favourite was someone being cut in half lengthways by a circular saw, which had me laughing manically) Gens has also tried to make the film a commentary on racial tensions that remain in society, and fair play to him. But when any sort of plot or idea is interrupted at regular 30-second intervals by some sort of carnage then it's pretty difficult to take it seriously. Frontiers is an all-guns-blazing horror that never lets up, and if you're after nothing more than a white-knuckle gore fest then this is definitely the movie for you. Just don't bother trying to read the subtexts, follow the plot or engage with any sort of artistic vision — this is a movie for old-school horror fans who like their blood undiluted by such trifles.
EXTRAS ** A relatively bare cupboard in this one, with only a "making of" and the obligatory trailers on offer. Although the making of is pretty cool just for all of the over-the-top blood and gore that's crammed into the film.