The Eves (2012)

"A Spring Break beach trip turns into a waking nightmare in this indie shocker based on true events. When car troubles lead a group of students to seek shelter in an abandoned lodge, dark forces emerge and blood is spilled."

Ever watched a horror movie just because of the picture on the DVD cover? Yeah, me too, all the time. That's how I ended up watching "The Eves" after promising to only watch good movies from now on. Oh well, as far as slasher clones go, it's not that bad. At least the scene with the shotgun-toting blonde occurs eventually.

Thus, although I was expecting something more like "High Tension" or even "Baise-moi", I ended up with yet another bunch of teenagers breaking down in the middle of nowhere and falling foul of a serial killer (or two) in a movie which shamelessly borrows from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) and every slasher made since. Presumably, that's how it's "based on true events".

All the usual clichés are ticked off including cell phones not working, teenagers with entitlement issues getting drunk, doing drugs, and having sex before being murdered one by one, and of course, there's the inevitable twist which I have to admit is nicely done here and not predictable at all. It's not overly original either, but it works.

The funny thing is that I actually enjoyed "The Eves", albeit not entirely in the way it was intended. I've never liked the original version of the "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", and if it wasn't for R. Lee Ermey as Sheriff Hoyt in the remake and its sequel, I wouldn't have watched those. I'm glad I have though, because it amused me to see the same setup being used again by one of these so-called "groundbreaking and innovative" indie horror movies, and my cynicism was constantly being justified.

To give credit where it's due, the acting in "The Eves" is more than acceptable considering that the characters are quite poorly differentiated. Out of the teenage guys, there's a serious one, a quiet one, an even quieter one who looks identical to the previous quiet one, a prankster, a smartass, and all of them are assholes. The three girls are basically two slutty ones (a blonde bimbo who shows her boobs and a kinky brunette who doesn't) plus a more serious blonde who is as normal as any of these stereotypes can be. What their names are doesn't even matter until near the end.

I like the pretty girls.

As in all modern slasher movies, there's exactly enough shown of the potential victims to make you hate them but not enough to allow you to sympathise with them, and then the lacklustre killing spree begins. In fairness, the kills are more realistically handled than having blood spurting everywhere or intestines wriggling all over the place, and the make-up/effects are okay, but there's nothing memorable about them in and of themselves either. The blinding scenes only made me feel a bit bad because they reminded me of a recent news story from China which I wish I'd never read about. "Man's inhumanity to man" is often much worse in real life than anything you'll see in a silly low-budget horror movie although a similar scene at the start of "Borderland" (2007) is just as gruesome.

While "The Eves" isn't particularly scary, some of the scenes manage suspense competently and the background music which accompanies them is complimentary. Unfortunately, nothing here is likely to get a hardcore horror fan's pulse racing. Considering that I am an example of that aforementioned "hardcore horror fan", I watched this movie calmly and patiently without a flicker of emotion whatsoever.

A casual viewer or someone new to the genre might get a kick of "The Eves", but he or she would have to be American and around the same age as the victims to avoid feeling alienated. When all's said and done, "The Eves" is just a cookie-cutter teen slasher aimed at cookie-cutter teenagers rather than someone like me anyway.

Behind the Walls 3D (2011)

(AKA "Derrière les murs")



"In 1922, a young novelist goes to the countryside to write her latest book and falls victim to terrifying hallucinations and nightmares."

With everyone else frantically writing about "Paranormal Activity 4" today, I thought I'd provide an alternative in the form of "Behind the Walls 3D". It's not that I recommend it over "Paranormal Activity 4" in any way, but I've waited a long time to say something about it, and it seems appropriate for my "Hallowe'en Countdown".

Let me just forewarn you that I generally love French horror movies. I usually don't care how bad they are or how much of their stories make absolutely no sense. Having said that, I really don't have anything good to tell you about "Behind the Walls" because I barely had the patience to sit through it. "Behind the Walls" is, without doubt, one of the most boring movie experiences ever unleashed upon the unsuspecting public.

The warning signs were there before I even started watching the DVD. Just about any movie which is directed and written by the same people tends to be a low-budget abomination, and adding 3D on top of that almost always guarantees a turd. I hoped it wouldn't be so, but I was proven right on both counts. In spite of "Behind the Walls" being the first French live-action feature shot in 3D, the sparse 3D moments add very little to a story which is handled so ineptly that it almost makes no sense at all.

From the promotional blurb and French websites, I mistakenly believed that "Behind the Walls" was going to be a period version of "Half Light" but with an even more attractive actress in. Superficially, "Behind the Walls" and "Half Light" both deal with the loss of an author's child and that same author retreating into an isolated place to write her next novel. That's where the similarities end.

"Behind the Walls" isn't really a ghost story or a thriller except that it has elements of both which are used as confusing red herrings. The unfurling drama is mainly about our author, Suzanne (Laetitia Casta), mixing drugs into her drinks and getting crazier while the local villagers blame her for all their troubles. When a couple of their daughters disappear, it reminds them of the last outsider who came to live in the area and a series of unsolved child murders. It sounds a lot like "The Reflecting Skin" too, doesn't it? Trust me, it isn't.

The only reason to watch "Behind the Walls" is to ogle Laetitia Casta. She was a Victoria's Secret model before becoming an actress, but you can't really hold that against her. She can actually act a bit although she's a bit dour-looking and far from perfect. Depending on the angle she's filmed from, she's also reminiscent of several Hollywood actresses whose names I can't quite remember. In other words, she's a "type" rather than a star.

The French are such great copyists, and they know what sells. Even Laetitia's love interest in "Behind the Walls" is an "Antonio Banderas type" by the name of Thierry Neuvic. Again, he's not a bad actor, but you won't see him outside of French cinema or TV either.

You might as well give up on the plot since all the good stuff involving an underground lair which Suzanne's cat, Zola, accidentally discovers is quite unimportant except in how it highlights the state of our heroine's mind. When Suzanne moves her typewriter to that spooky place to write her Lovecraftian novel, of course, it's very creepy and full of supernatural shenanigans, but it's all in her head.

Everything is about coincidences, people jumping to conclusions with the minimum of circumstantial evidence, and ignoring what is right in front of them. That is except for the local pervert/mid-life crisis guy who becomes dangerously obsessed with Suzanne, and, of course, her Antonio Banderas lookalike boyfriend who gives her a gratuitous diddling before setting off to play detective in another village.

One scene which reeks of plagiarism (however unlikely it may be) is when Suzanne is in a bathtub surrounded by rats. Although the old porcelain bathtub reminded me of the posters for "Slither", Teeth" and "What Lies Beneath", the scene obviously owed most to the first of these and simply swapped alien bugs for a horde of rodents.

Without spoiling the ending for you (as if you'll ever be silly enough to watch this anyway), let me just say that my overwhelming thought when the credits came up was, "What the bloody Hell did I just watch?" I've tried to put it together for the purpose of this review, but I may be completely wrong about what the directors, Julien Lacombe and Pascal Sid, were trying to achieve.

"Behind the Walls" has some beautiful locations, is nicely filmed, the sparseness of the setting works in its favour, and the costumes are spot-on, but it lacks a cohesive and involving story. It's not a traditional ghost story, and it may have a deeper meaning about French national guilt or some such tripe which is way above my head, but it's just as likely to be only a badly made movie.