Behind the menacing title Infested hides a nasty little horror about a deadly spider infestation in a rundown Parisian apartment building. The original, French title, sounds even more frightening: Vermines. This is actually the second “spider infestation in an apartment building” movie I’ve seen in the last couple of months. The first one was Sting. Both of these movies, however, suffer from generic character development which, in turn, makes all the intense and graphic action scenes feel flaccid. If you don’t care about the characters and they feel fake and plastic, you’re rooting for the spiders to eat them all. We’ll talk about this more later.
Infested opened strong, showing us a group of men trying to capture spiders in some exotic Middle Eastern desert. Of course, the spiders fuck one of them up but they eventually manage to capture them. Smuggled to France, they end up in the possession of a young guy keeping all kinds of exotic pets. From that moment on, it’s just one stereotype after another. Our protagonist, Kaleb, lives alone with his sister in a Parisian hood because of course he does. He’s selling stolen goods but not drugs and has a strong moral code. Something that will come into play later in the movie. You can already guess the composition of the rest of the characters.
The build-up is rather slow and we’ll spend a lot of time trying to get to know both the hood and its inhabitants. Things do kick off in the second half of the movie and this part is reminiscent of the Spanish sleeper hit Rec. Now, the strange buildings where Kaleb lives and where the story takes place are Picasso arenas in Noisy-le-Grand. Designed by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky back in the eighties, they look quite striking. I immediately thought of Brutalist architecture infused with something else. And not just that as the basement looks exactly like the basement in my apartment building.
The wooden bars instead of regular walls and doors and metal pipes running above your head are practically the same. I was wondering will a load of old computer cases and monitors hit Kaleb’s head when he opens the door. Infested AKA Vermines is Sébastien Vanicek’s debut and as such it’s pretty solid. A classic creature feature using both claustrophobia and arachnophobia to scare the viewers. For me personally, this wasn’t such a scary movie because of the subpar character development. However, if you’re afraid of spiders, I’m sure you’ll have a different impression. I think it would’ve been a better idea to just dive into action and let characters make logical decisions.
And if you’re going for illogical and forced decisions then lean into them and make sort of a retro-slasher, a genre that’s quickly gaining popularity. Now, Vanicek conceived Infested as a social commentary on xenophobia, drawing parallels between hood residents and spiders. This is extremely difficult to pull off and you have to be an experienced director to translate this idea properly to the audience. This is, I think, the movie’s biggest problem, it’s just lost in translation. I watched it twice, very carefully and I didn’t get the message. I did get a different and more realistic depiction of the hood.
Everything else, however, was a miss. To be perfectly clear, I’m not asking for relatable or even likable characters. What I’m asking for are authentic and somewhat logical ones, at least in this configuration. Attack the Block features characters who are not likable and it still manages to elicit some emotion from the viewer. I would also liked to have seen more gruesome kills on screen but it is what it is. I have to emphasize that this has nothing to do with the cast. Théo Christine and Sofia Lesaffre were good choices for the lead roles and I can see a bright future for both of them.
There are also a lot of, for the lack of a better word, “cinematic” scenes featuring spiders. You can clearly feel Vanicek storyboarded the shit out of this movie making it extremely visually impressive. The production values along with special effects were excellent. The production team actually used over 200 very real and very big huntsman spiders during filming. And they look positively nasty. Especially towards the end, when things kick off in the story. Speaking of the story, we won’t learn much about why any of this is happening. I mean, why spiders are attacking people, growing to unusually large proportions, and other stuff? I guess that’s just how things go.
Ultimately, that doesn’t matter as Infested is a forgettable horror thriller good for exactly one viewing. It showcases the potential of everyone involved, especially Sebastien Vanicek who could go on to make some great movies. After all, he’s the guy in charge of the Untitled Evil Dead Spin-off and I think he’s going to nail it on the head. Finally, if you’re looking for more movies featuring spiders, check out: Arachnophobia, Eight Legged Freaks, and Infestation,
Director: Sebastien Vanicek
Writers: Florent Bernard, Sebastien Vanicek
Cast: Theo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre, Jerome Niel, Lisa Nyarko, Finnegan Oldfield, Marie-Philomene Nga
Fun Facts: Infested AKA Vermines was a commercial success in its native country, France. During its theatrical run, it was seen by more than 200.000 fans and it was subsequently acquired by Shudder.
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26744289/
