This movie is hilarious. A young attractive lady doctor trying to recover from a personal tragedy arrives at a somewhat secluded French island community to work her sorrows away. But a funny thing starts happening just after she arrives -- Local citizens have increasingly dangerous accidents involving otherwise mundane household appliances or objects: Coffee makers shoot scalding water, wine glasses shatter and splinter into mouths, electric carving knives strike back at their operators, razors start chopping away masses of flesh, a microwave oven teaches a chef to keep her cotton pickin' fingers to herself, and finally a small drum of cooking gas explodes, claiming two lives.
Our heroic & somewhat neurotic young doctor senses that the accidents are connected, somehow, and tracks all of the deadly appliances to a local general merchandise store, where they were all purchased brand new just before turning on their would have been owners. Further intrigue involving a sinister local physician, a deformed kid who looks like the Star Child from 2001 crossed with Dennis the Menace, a well-informed Atari computer which doesn't appear to have Defender installed on it, and the indifference of the local population all add to the mix, with our young heroine becoming increasingly hysterical & convinced that some sort of other-worldly influence is at work.
Or at least, that's what *APPEARS* to be going on: I speak exactly four words of French and did not hear them spoken at all during the film's 97 minutes or so & have no idea what the intricacies of the paper thin plot involved. On the other hand it was very easy & somewhat fun to follow along as the story developed, especially the way that the director began to have the use of every day accouterments of life take on a sinister air as people would do otherwise unremarkable tasks like turn on lights, open doors, peel a carrot or just take a bath.
Once you think about it, most of us face potential peril dozens of times a day without even blinking ... like, what if your car got possessed by a demonic force and decided to just not allow the use of your breaks? What if your electric pencil sharpener kept on sucking your whole hand into it's maw? What if you opened up the door of your oven to check on din-dins and were greeted by an exploding ball of flame? That kind of thinking is what drives the interest in this movie, as well as some pretty clever cinematic tricks like the guy who gets sucked into the earth of a cemetery at the very end & the pretty young actress who obligingly removes every stitch of clothing she was wearing because the producers decided the movie needed some nudity.
I'll say one more thing about this movie: For a French horror movie it is decidedly subtle, lacking the all-out assault on the senses usually attributed to French directors like Jean Rollin. And it also has a sort of mundane, every-day ordinariness to it's look that I found to be quite appealing. Even it's strange, telekinesis fueled conclusion in a barn ominously filled with various tools with cutting, chopping, spiking or digging ends dangerously pointing out at the pretty young protagonist. Here is a horror movie that succeeds not by atmosphere or over the top sex & gore, but by being so ordinary that any one of us can relate to what it shows. We face more dangers every day than Rambo did in all three of his movies combined and here is a movie with a macabre sense of humor that makes good use of our justifiable fear of modern life.
7/10; An English translated version would be nice, but whatever: A good movie is a good movie.
Our heroic & somewhat neurotic young doctor senses that the accidents are connected, somehow, and tracks all of the deadly appliances to a local general merchandise store, where they were all purchased brand new just before turning on their would have been owners. Further intrigue involving a sinister local physician, a deformed kid who looks like the Star Child from 2001 crossed with Dennis the Menace, a well-informed Atari computer which doesn't appear to have Defender installed on it, and the indifference of the local population all add to the mix, with our young heroine becoming increasingly hysterical & convinced that some sort of other-worldly influence is at work.
Or at least, that's what *APPEARS* to be going on: I speak exactly four words of French and did not hear them spoken at all during the film's 97 minutes or so & have no idea what the intricacies of the paper thin plot involved. On the other hand it was very easy & somewhat fun to follow along as the story developed, especially the way that the director began to have the use of every day accouterments of life take on a sinister air as people would do otherwise unremarkable tasks like turn on lights, open doors, peel a carrot or just take a bath.
Once you think about it, most of us face potential peril dozens of times a day without even blinking ... like, what if your car got possessed by a demonic force and decided to just not allow the use of your breaks? What if your electric pencil sharpener kept on sucking your whole hand into it's maw? What if you opened up the door of your oven to check on din-dins and were greeted by an exploding ball of flame? That kind of thinking is what drives the interest in this movie, as well as some pretty clever cinematic tricks like the guy who gets sucked into the earth of a cemetery at the very end & the pretty young actress who obligingly removes every stitch of clothing she was wearing because the producers decided the movie needed some nudity.
I'll say one more thing about this movie: For a French horror movie it is decidedly subtle, lacking the all-out assault on the senses usually attributed to French directors like Jean Rollin. And it also has a sort of mundane, every-day ordinariness to it's look that I found to be quite appealing. Even it's strange, telekinesis fueled conclusion in a barn ominously filled with various tools with cutting, chopping, spiking or digging ends dangerously pointing out at the pretty young protagonist. Here is a horror movie that succeeds not by atmosphere or over the top sex & gore, but by being so ordinary that any one of us can relate to what it shows. We face more dangers every day than Rambo did in all three of his movies combined and here is a movie with a macabre sense of humor that makes good use of our justifiable fear of modern life.
7/10; An English translated version would be nice, but whatever: A good movie is a good movie.