Alone in a Paris plagued by deadly race riots the young and beautiful Yasmine is looking for a way out. In her desperation she turns to her shady ex-boyfriend. Together with his two thug friends they pull off a bold heist and head for the border. With the police close behind they hide out in a seemingly peaceful inn. But the mysterious innkeeper is hiding a secret more terrifying than anything they could ever imagine. Trapped in an endless maze of tunnels crawling with hungry subhuman cannibals they must fight to survive their bloody initiation into the innkeeper's evil family cult.
Let me start by saying that if you're only gonna watch one horror film this year, (which you of course shouldn't), let that film be FRONTIER(S). Why you say? Well my friend, the reasons are many but they're all very good reasons indeed. While the story (like so many others before this one) borrows kinda heavily from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, FRONTIER(S) still manages to stand out in its own extremely grisly way. First off it's a movie from France and only that lifts it up quite a lot since these foreign flicks oftentimes have a tendency to come off as way more realistic than any Hollywood flick out there. And while it has that going for it, it also has a gritty yet beautiful look, great actors, great drama, tons of gore and splatter, and scene after scene that delivers what you want a real horror movie to deliver.
 
Throughout the film, the gore is a number of times over-the-top but what separates it from many other flicks that also features over-the-top gore is that those gory scenes never comes off as tacky. They're just massive but never laughable and all has an eerie feel to them, which is just great. The story is simple but works wonders and is about a group of people who flee Paris during the violent aftermath of a political election. Split up in two different cars, the group is heading for Amsterdam but stop at a motel on the way there, located in the lonely French country side. That of course is a big mistake because the owners of the motel are a cannibalistic Nazi family(!) Obviously, after having arrived at the motel, the shit hits the fan pretty quick and makes for one major blood bath that every horror fan definitely should check out.
Now, while this film is packed with gore, dismemberment, cannibalism and horrific torture scenes, it also has some drama to offer and it's easy to get attached to the characters really quick. I can't say that they're truly likable but after seeing the shit they have to go through, you just can't help but to root for them. Unlike HOSTEL, one did not have to sit through bad acting, worthless dialogue, tacky T&A, and a pointless first 30-or-so-minutes before anything remotely interesting happened. FRONTIER(S) set the mood real fast and it didn't take too long before it got to the "good stuff", and after that it just kept getting more and more violent and never stopped until the credits started to roll. Excellent!
If you're a horror fan who appreciates when things are taken to the max, you'll love FRONTIER(S). This is one of those movies that mainstream horror fans will think is just way too much and that's ALWAYS a very good sign. Yet again, Hollywood definitely has something to learn here. Check this baby out, it's highly recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Frontière(s)
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: Xavier Gens
WRITING CREDITS: Xavier Gens
GENRE: Horror, Thriller
CAST: Karina Testa, Samuel Le Bihan, Aurélien Wiik
COUNTRY: France, Switzerland
RUNTIME: 108 min
RATING: 10/10
Frontier(s) Website/IMDB Click here
Frontier(s) Trailer
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