Horror movies don’t always need supernatural monsters to make audiences jump from their seats. There’s plenty of things right in nature that make people squirm. Most of us have some rational – and irrational – fear of bugs. And spiders likely top that list for most people. Not surprisingly then, the eight-legged arachnids have headlined a handful of effectively creepy movies. From the atomic era’s Tarantula to Arachnophobia to Eight-Legged Freaks, spiders make for nightmare fuel regardless of size. Now Shudder has released the French horror movie, Infested, to crawl under your skin. To date, critics like what they’re seeing creeping onto the screen.
Synopsis
Kaleb is 30 years old now, but his life isn’t going anywhere. While he dreams about turning his exotic animal collection into a real reptile store, he hustles sneakers on the side. Many of the residents of the run-down apartment building where he lives view Kaleb with suspicion. His own sister, Manon, is getting impatient with him. And soon he’ll have to move out of his dead mother’s apartment. Things only get worse when his latest exotic addition, a venomous spider, escapes into the building. Somehow the spider quickly breeds, infesting the building and trapping its residents.
Infested Understands What Scares Audiences About Spiders
From its great opening scene, director Sebastien Vanicek, making his first feature-length movie, shows he’s quite comfortable with the material. First and foremost, Infested is a creature feature that effectively checks off the expected boxes. After establishing the threat of its spider, Vanicek doesn’t waste much time letting it loose and multiplying. Vanicek and co-writer Florent Bernard introduce us to their characters and respective plights in the run-down complex. While there’s some occasional talk about ‘Darwin’ and adapting, Infested wisely avoids trying to explain too much to audiences. All you need to know is that there’s plenty of spiders and they get bigger and bigger.
…Vanicek plays on our most rational fears as spiders hide in shoes and other places most of us worry about.
And Vanicek knows exactly how to stage scenes and where to put his camera to maximize squirms from the audience. Characters look slowly down dark cracks, holes, and vents – Infested knows enough to drag these moments out as long as possible. Moreover, Vanicek plays on our most rational fears as spiders hide in shoes and other places most of us worry about. In particular, one scene makes perfect use of a dark, claustrophobic hallway filled with cobwebs and spiders to elicit discomfort. The finale set in an underground parking garage ratchets up the chaos, but never forgets to slow down the sight of a large spider crawling in through a broken car window.
Infested Not Content to Just Follow Creature Feature Conventions
Where Infested exceeds expectations is Vanicek’s willingness to subvert some subgenre expectations. Eight-Legged Freaks satirized atomic monster movies from the 1950s, and Arachnophobia was a fun, lighter take on killer spiders. In contrast, Vanicek avoids the more silly tropes associated with many creature movies. He maintains a consistently dire tone to the proceedings that increase the odds that any one character can die. Though there’s similarities to movies like Quarantine wherein characters are locked down by authorities, Infested reminds audiences that it’s the lower social class of its residents that leaves them vulnerable.
In contrast, Vanicek avoids the more silly tropes associated with many creature movies.
Consistent with its commentary, Infested distinguishes itself by humanizing its cast of characters. That is, Vanicek and Bernard subvert initial character tropes and flesh out their main characters as real living and breathing people. Even minor characters in the apartment complex strike a minor chord in their roles. All of the performances from an unfamiliar cast are compelling. As a result, the relationships on screen matter and survival and loss have emotional stakes. With its final moments, it’s almost easy to forget you just watched a movie about creepy spiders crawling out of bodies. The finale resonates much like a similarly themed movie, Attack the Block, ended.
Infested Creeps and Crawls, Making the Most of All Eight Legs of its Arachnids
Infested illustrates how simple ideas that are well executed can produce fantastic results. On one hand, Vanicek understands what people find frightening about spiders and just puts it up right on the screen. There’s plenty of skin-crawling moments and jumps set against a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere that steadily increases. Yet Vanicek defies creature feature conventions by never letting his story slide into silly territory. Instead, Infested roots its creepy horror in an emotional story accompanied by compelling performances and thoughtful commentary. In what’s shaping up to be a good year for horror, Infested immediately sets itself apart.