Has a terrific slow-burning intensity as it torments its central characters (and the audience). Although it waits a bit too long to play its trump card.
Comment
08/15/07
Them (2007)
63 %
Reviews Counted: 49 Fresh: 31 Rotten:18 Average Rating: 6.2/10
Consensus:
Suspenseful and tense from start to finish, the French horror film Them proves that a lack of gore doesn't mean a dearth of scares.
Rated: 15
Runtime: 78 mins
Theatrical Release: 26-01-2007
Synopsis: Somewhere in Romania; Clementine is finishing her day of teaching the local kids French. On her way home she spots an abandoned vehicle beside the road. She continues on unaware of what happened to its occupants, a mother and her teenage daughter, the night before. Not that it matters, as... [More]
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Starring: Olivia Bonamy, Michael Cohen
Director: Xavier Palud, David Moreau
Screenwriter: Xavier Palud, David Moreau
Producer: Richard Grandpierre
Composer: René-Marc Bini
Screenwriter: Xavier Palud, David Moreau
Producer: Richard Grandpierre
Composer: René-Marc Bini
Reviews
Top Critic
No story-structure, no succession of scary scenes and then ordinary-life scenes to clean the palate. Just one long unendurably tense and frightening sequence.
07/14/07
Top Critic
This superb horror thriller breaks violently into your consciousness, robbing you of all sense of security.
06/13/07
Top Critic
A perfectly-fine stripped-down little horror movie and if you're not a hardcore horror fan you'll probably find some of it surprising.
01/29/07
Top Critic
Effective in an unambitious way, it gives a new meaning to 'Boys in the Hood'.
01/28/07
The nature of the couple’s tormentors makes the action scarier than it would have been with, say, a supernatural monster, but it also represents a cheap and nasty move by Moreau and Palud.
01/28/07
So skilfully does the film shield its hand that the final "reveal" actually comes as a disappointment - the enigma was truly much harder to bear.
01/26/07
Plenty of jolts and some pleasingly spooky scenes, with the tension ratcheted up to fever pitch, but then it all falls to pieces with a badly fumbled ending.
01/26/07
Claustrophobic and exhausting, Them fumbles its payoff but reminds us why French chillers are a rare but thrilling treat.
01/26/07
Top Critic
Just one long unendurably tense and frightening sequence, beginning with the terrified couple waking in the middle of the night and having to creep downstairs, extended like a violin string about to snap.
01/26/07
Top Critic Top Critic
A 20-minute calling card short extended to a tolerance-stretching 74 minutes, this is an effectively directed but ultimately pointless wind-up exercise.
01/26/07
Top Critic
Definitely one of the best horror films I've seen in a while, and plays to the key of terror and our imagination provoking enough imagery without the director having to do much of anything...
03/26/08
You can always expect a little embellishment for any horror film or thriller that claims to be based on a true story or actual events. This one, however, doesn't sell it.
01/10/08
First-time directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud have crafted a highly effective horror film that combines a plausible narrative with accomplished use of sound and image.
01/03/08
The final 20 minutes contain some of the best, uncontrived twists of any post-Sixth Sense American suspense film, but there is a good reason for that, as the co-directors reveal with a shocking epilogue.
10/23/07
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