Lucas and Clementine lives a peacefull life together in a big secluded house, but one night they wake up from hearing strange noises. It seems someone or something has broken into their house, and that they are not after money or valuables, but that they are after Lucas and Clementine.
One thing I like, no wait, one thing I love is when I get my hands on movies I have heard absolutely nothing about. As I usually spend my days trying to do as little work as humanly possible and instead reading up on movies, news, whatever, so usually when I get to see a movie, I've followed it for a long time during it's production and the making of it. This of course gives you some expectations, and one thing I have learned but never been fully able to deal with are having high expectations, something that always seems to be a bad thing.
So it was nice for a change to have heard nothing about this new French horror opus entitled Ils, (or Them in English). Another thing that was great was the fact that the movie was neither American nor Asian, but French. Reason for that is simply for the fact that 70 percent of all the horror you watch tend to be American, and 29 percent tend to be Asian, so it's always nice to get that 1 percent every once in a while. Ok, so I'm half kidding, but I guess you get my point, it's nice with some different foreign stuff, and this time it's French, a country that has delivered quite a few good flicks over the years. Interesting, well, at least that's what I first thought...
Ils is a really simple movie that has the famous cat and mouse theme baked into it. Basically, this couple Lucas and Clementine one night hear strange noises outside their house. They head down to the first floor, goes out the front door and sees that someone is stealing their car. After that, someone breaks into the house, well more than one, and the couple has no idea what's going on except for that danger lies ahead. After a while, they manage to flee from the house and heads to a big forest located close by. They keep being chased, and things stay pretty intense for a while.
Can't really tell you more about the story or about what happens, although I can say that it started of pretty good, got way better, and then got way worse. Basically it's dark at all times and for a while the movie's a real nail-biter. It sure delivers suspense, in fact a helluva lot of suspense, but eventually it gets stupid and ends that way as well. But as long as the couple are being chased, and you have no idea what's after them, it sure delivers some good horror/suspense. This goes for most horror flicks, as long as it keps its mystery, it's usually a helluva lot better and scarier. Once the mystery is gone, or that is that things have been revealed, something good (which means bad/scary/horrible) has to come out of it. But when you find out what is what in Ils, things just plain sucks.
The acting is good though, and the couple sure seems really scared and freaked out about what's going on. One thing I like was the somewhat shaky camera at times as it made things feel more realistic, and not just like watching another horror movie. When I say a shaky camera, it doesn't mean that it's so shaky that you won't be able to make things out, that you will. Ils is also a pretty short flick that only lasts for 77 minutes, and those minutes goes by pretty fast. The movie's fast-paced and never dull, while what was chasing them truly is dull as hell. It's too bad, it could've been so much better.
The first hour or so is pretty great and delivers a lot of nail-biting suspense. It's only the last remaining 15 minutes that almost completely ruins it when you find out what's after poor Lucas and Clementine. Since the outcome sucked, I thought I should give it a pretty low rating, but since it had so much other good stuff to offer and looked pretty slick, I felt that it had a lot of things going for it as well. A simple but ok story, a lot of suspense, some horror, but a brutally bad ending. Not the first time, and it will unfortunately not be the last time either I guess.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Them
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: David Moreau, Xavier Palud
WRITING CREDITS: David Moreau, Xavier Palud
GENRE: Horror, Thriller
CAST: Olivia Bonamy, Michaël Cohen
COUNTRY: France
RUNTIME: 77 min
RATING: 5/10
Ils Website/IMDB Click here
Ils Trailer Click here
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