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67 comments in total

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25 out of 32 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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71 out of 124 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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14 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
A Good Variation of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Hill Have Eyes", 30 August 2008

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In Paris, during the riots due to the election of a conservative candidate to the presidency of France, the Muslin small thieves teenagers from the periphery Alex (Aurélien Wiik), Tom (David Saracino), Farid (Chems Dahmani), the pregnant Yasmine (Karina Testa) and her brother Sami (Adel Bencherif) plan to run away from Paris to Amsterdam with a bag full of robbed money. However, Sami is shot and the group split, with Alex and Yasmine going to the emergency of a hospital with Sami while Tom and Farid heads to the border with the money. Tom and Farid decide to stop in a bed and breakfast nearby the frontier, and are hosted by Gilberte (Estelle Lefébure) and Klaudia (Amélie Daure) that offer free room and sex to the newcomers. They call Alex and Yasmine that are fleeing from Paris to join them in the inn, but sooner they discover that their hosts are sadistic cannibals of a Nazi family leaded by the deranged patriarch and former SS officer Le Von Geisler (Jean-Pierre Jorris).

"Frontière(s)" is another brutal French horror movie and a good variation of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Hill Have Eyes". As a fan of horror movies, I note that French directors are making extremely violent and gore movies, like "Haute Tension" and "À l'Intérieur" that I have recently seen. "Frontière(s)" presents the storyline that everybody knows, but associated to a good screenplay with many cruelties and tortures, great acting and realistic special effects and make-up. I believe that fans of the genre will not be disappointed with this film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Fronteira" ("The Border")

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14 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Boring Mess., 25 June 2008

Author: louis-price

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I just thought I had to throw in my penny's worth here and express my surprise at the glowing reviews for this film. Normally I tend to agree with the majority of reviews in the IMDb comments bit, but I feel like I live on a different planet to most of my fellow reviewers here. I had really high expectations for this movie, I loved Haute Tension, Calvaire, Sheitan, Inside, Trouble Every Day, Irreversible, Dobermann, etc etc; These new french horror flicks are really exciting, they follow the lead from the 80s french horror 'Baby Blood', in that they are uncompromising, gory, unpredictable, and even sexy. Frontier(s), sounded like it could easily fit in with this ethos, but it was a total blow out.

Frontier(s) is slickly shot, quite gory, and has some bits that should be scary, but it has this horribly immature atmosphere to it, like it was made by a bunch of 15 year old kids let loose with a decent budget and short term memory loss. The editing is ridiculous, rendering the film unwatchable and incoherent in the action scenes, Frontier(s) makes 'Van Helsing' look like a Bela Tarr movie. The acting is really bad too, with the main characters performances reminding me of some kind of inner London 'Yoof' centre Am-Dram play. The director has obviously watched 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and realised that if everyone screams their head off and goes into (unconvincing) spasms, then they will create a scary atmosphere. All it does is pull you out of the film.

Finally, the plot is completely stupid (even by horror standards), introducing a Nazi sub- plot (There is definitely a 'La Haine' type plot element, with Paris rioters coming into contact with neo-Nazis, hmm), and making no attempt at all to explain anything.

If you want to watch a film where by the end you feel like you have been shouted at and smacked around the face with a packet of Bernard Mathews gammon for 10 hours, then watch this film. Otherwise avoid like the bubonic plague.

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27 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
French Kiss .... The Extreme Kind!, 8 April 2008

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

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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20 out of 33 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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32 out of 57 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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16 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
The Final Frontier(s)?, 2 August 2008

Author: Jonny_Numb from Hellfudge, Pennsylvania

Homage is a tricky thing–there is an extremely fine line in paying tribute to the cinematic works of others and merely ripping them off (hello, "Doomsday"!). And integrating a whiff of political commentary to give an aura of sophistication to what is, at heart, an unabashed splatter-fest, is even trickier (and much harder to pull of convincingly–see George Romero's "Living Dead" series). Despite how wobbly Xavier ("Hitman") Gens' blood-soaked "Frontier(s)" is in both of these departments, it comes out ahead due to its own maniacal, implacable energy; while prone to including too many monotonous chases that slow up (rather than quicken) the overall pace, there are scenes of such visceral savagery on display that it's hard to take your eyes off the screen. While some of the performances and characterizations veer dangerously close to camp, Gens comes close to establishing the same sort of fever-dream madness that made "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" so endearing: when an extreme right-wing candidate is elected to the French presidency, the citizens take to the streets in protest (the film's opening images are culled from actual news footage); using this as a cover, 5 small-time crooks knock off a bank and meet up at a countryside hostel that just happens to be run by several generations of an inbred, neo-Nazi family (including a patriarch that looks like B-movie king Roger Corman; and a sister who resembles Gen from The Genitortures); what ensues is a survival-of-the-luckiest chase through bowels-of-hell settings that have been well-established in the "Saw" and "Hostel" flicks. Gens also pulls (un)inspiration from the likes of "The Descent" (a fantastically claustrophobic tunnel-crawl; subhuman critters in underground caverns), "High Tension" (the beleaguered heroine spends the last 20 minutes wearing a literal coat of gore), and seemingly every one of the "Texas Chainsaw"s (coming closest to the family dynamic of Part III). While "Frontier(s)" spills its share of the red vino, it doesn't approach the level its reputation would lead you to believe–by comparison, the far more original "Inside" trumps this in terms of jaw-dropping carnage–but Gens instills his violence with such a brutally misanthropic tone that it comes across with more discomfort than catharsis. That being said, there is a bizarre appeal to our protagonists, probably because their initial crime and in-fighting becomes more forgivable in the face of the malevolent menace they bump up against; and the villains are grotesquely charismatic, forming an interlacing network of poison DNA and an undeniable (and undeniably perverse) sense of familial honor. "Frontier(s)" is messy, and certainly no masterpiece, but it makes for a diverting trip into the potential for genre extremity.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Extremely derivative, but awesome nonetheless, 11 January 2009

Author: amazing_sincodek from United States

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is credited with revolutionizing the horror genre. Many subsequent films emulated its brutally, psychologically violent approach. And a few subsequent films have just ripped it off.

Accordingly, I've generated a checklist to evaluate whether and how well modern horror films rip off the TCM. (I'm kidding, BTW. I'm making this "checklist" up on the spot.)

Qualification checklist:

--Crazy family of murderers? (Check.)

--Butchery of the dead? (Check.)

--Emphasis on realism and brutality? (Check.)

--A scene where someone thinks they've escaped the family and gotten help, only to discover that the person they're getting help from is also part of the family? (Check.)

So, yes. Frontier(s) definitely qualifies as a TCM rip off. But how good is it? Pretty darn good. Good enough to offend you. Good enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, even though you've seen it a million times before. Good enough, perhaps, to make you cringe. Highly recommended, if that's your sort of thing. Not really as gory as some films, but it certainly has enough brutality to stand among the best of them.

Of course, it takes a lot more to shock us today than it did in the 70s. Accordingly, my quality evaluation checklist bears little resemblance to the shocks from the original TCM.

Quality Evaluation:

--Pregnant women gets punched in the face? (Check.)

--Severed tendons? (Check.)

--Someone gets ruined with a buzzsaw? (Check.)

--Exploding head? (Check.)

--Boobs? (Sort of. I recall seeing a boob for about half a second in the latter half of the film, and earlier in the movie there's a nonsensical, fast-paced sex scene with music video style editing. I can't remember if any breasts are bared in this early scene.)

So, all in all, it's pretty good.

On a parting note. Others have compared it to Hostel and to High Tension; I think these are inappropriate comparisons. The film's structure is much more similar to TCM. Hostel is divided distinctly into two sections, with the first half being a fantasy wonderland and the second half being its seedy underside. High Tension is pretty much one situation happening for an hour and half. Frontier(s), like TCM, is a downward spiral for the first 45 minutes or so, and then an extended climax that maintains its intensity right up until perhaps 30 seconds before the credits roll.

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32 out of 60 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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