The French horror film Infested is like Arachnophobia on speed and without the laughs. It also owes a little to the all out comedy horror; Eight Legged Freaks. This 2023 offering takes itself very seriously. Infested AKA Vermines also takes a bit from Attack the Block, lower income types living on the edge of legality.
Synopsis
A group of men gas a hole in the desert to retrieve live spiders. The little rascals are uber aggressive. One of the men moves too slowly and is attacked. The others capture as many of the spiders as they can. These arachnids will be sold.
Caleb (Théo Christine) shares his late mother’s flat with his sister Manon, played by Lisa Nyarko. He loves all creatures that are exotic in nature. She wants to renovate the flat. Caleb gets one of the spiders and adds it to his collection.
He promises the new arrival a new “5 star” home. Caleb never swears, loves his menagerie and sells “name” trainers, sneakers, from his lock up in the apartment building basement. He goes to confront Manon about turning off the heat lamps needed for his collection.
The spider escapes.
The spider kills its first victim. Police quarantine the building and remove the dead body. The rapidly spreading spider population now have a smorgasbord to feast on.
behind the scenes
Infested was co-written and directed by Sébastien Vanicek (His partner in scribe was Florent Bernard.) and was Vanicek’s first feature length effort. Alexandre Jamin was the cinematographer and his shots were all tight adding a certain amount of claustrophobia to each frame.
The editing was down to Thomas Fernandez and Nassim Gordji Tehrani and they put this tightly shot film together perfectly. The lighting and the composition of each scene sells the tension.
The CG spiders looked agreeably real and at no time are you aware of the “man behind the curtain.”
The wrap up
After a suspenseful few moments, Infested takes off like an F-16. No runway required here though as this spiderfest shoots out of the screen at the viewer. The spiders themselves do not look too unlike the common variety of garden spiders. It is their black colour and rapid growth cycle that amp up the scares.
Watching this film will make the viewer start checking for small eight legged visitors in the house or on their neck. (There is a hallway scene that will make you cringe.) The film is not on par with the 2009 French film Le Horde, zombies in a derelict apartment building, but it could be called a kissing cousin.
The film is in French and utilizes subtitles to translate the story. Those who do not mind those pesky subtitles can catch Infested on Amazon Prime via AMC+ (On Shudder.)
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