Frontier(s).

"There's enough blood in the unrated French horror film Frontier(s) to satiate even the most ravenous gore hounds," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "The real surprise here is that this creepy, contemporary gross-out also has some ideas, visual and otherwise, wedged among its sanguineous drips, swaying meat hooks and whirring table saw."

"Xavier Gens may pledge allegiance to 70s grindhousers, but like the garbage hauled out at least once a year from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production house, or the two-headed, razor-studded dildo formed by Hostel and Hostel II, the style of the French director's career-making torture porn is very much a sign of our times: a capitulation to base pop appetites," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant.

"Along with films like Á L'Intérieur (Inside) and Haute Tension (High Tension), Frontier(s) represents a mini-movement of Hollywood-slick yet fashionably outré French horror that seeks to beat its extreme American counterparts at their own game," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club. "In this particular case, director Xavier Gens (Hitman) probably should have aimed higher."

For the New York Sun, Steve Dollar talks with Gens and star Karina Testa.

Earlier: Reviews from Toronto.

Posted by dwhudson at May 10, 2008 10:06 AM