There is a fright that never goes out

It’s tricky to talk about Them (Ils) without putting your foot in it and ruining the nasty short, sharp shock at the film’s denouement but one thing is for sure.

This is not a remake of the giant ant movie of the same name. A tremendously freaky horror made in Romania by debuting French directors Xavier Palud and David Moreau, Them owes as much to Michael Haneke’s Funny Games as it does John Carpenter’s Halloween.
“Yes”, agrees Xavier. “Funny Games was definitely one of the films we looked at to work out how to generate tension and nasty surprises. We wanted that kind of unbearable crescendo.”
Like Herr Haneke’s chilly thriller, the action unfolds at an isolated location. Teacher Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy) and novelist Lucas (Michaël Cohen), a thirtysomething couple, are expats living in the under-populated suburbs of Bucharest. One evening odd things start to happen. The telephone keeps ringing but only incomprehensible voices can be heard on the line. Their car disappears. Soon strange noises alert the couple that they are not alone in the house. The flee to the nearby forest but “ils” pursue them. Soon everyone ends up trapped in the grimmest of places - a post-Soviet sewer system.
“It is all based on events that happened in the Czech Republic,” Xavier says. “We heard the story and we completely fascinated by it. We wanted to write a first feature that we could make on a low-budget so it all seemed to fit. We wanted to make something where the camera seems to be the monster following the protagonists. We both like John Carpenter and it is also a way of keeping cost sdown.”
There have been plenty of shocking films from France this past decade.This writer still can’t walk through an underpass since Irreversible. Oddly however, only a few French directors seem to venture into horror territory with any degree of success. Maléfique and Bloody Mallory, for example, were given a lukewarm reception. The Ordeal was better though sadly did not make it into theatres in this part of the world.
“That’s right”, says Xavier. “There is no tradition of it. I think it has taken a long time for French cinema to escape from the shadow of the new wave. But that will change. People our age grew up watching videos and if you grew up that way then you’re very familiar with the genre.”
Taut and splendidly scary, Them has swiftly won admirers in Hollywood. Wes Craven has met with Xavier and David to ask them to remake The Last House On The Left but the boys have opted to direct the English language version of Hideo Nakata’s The Eye. Jessica Alba has already signed on to star.
“We love Last House On The Left,” says Xavier. “But it is too spectacular, too gory. We want to do something more psychological. We are fans of the Hideo Nakata film, but it has a lot of very Japanese references. That interest in ghosts is foreign in the west so we will just go after your mind.”
Can’t wait.
Them is released Janaury 28.