Infested

Film: Infested (Vermines)

Year: 2023

Director: Sébastien Vanicek

Writers: Florent Bernard and Sébastien Vanicek

Starring: Théo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre and Jérôme Niel

Review:

This was a movie that had buzz coming to Shudder. It sounds like this did well at festivals and there was excitement. Due to that information, it jumped up to the top of my movies to watch for 2024 to build my end of year list. There also wasn’t a 2024 horror film coming to the theater by me so I checked this out as a Featured Review. I’ve also given it a second watch to see where I ended up with my thoughts as well.

Synopsis: residents of a rundown French apartment building battle against an army of deadly, rapidly reproducing spiders.

We start this in a desert somewhere in the middle east. There are guys searching and one of them finds a hole under a rock. There is a bit of webbing in it. They have a method to flush out spiders that are living within. This guy is joined by his group and they’re catching the ones that flee. We see that the guy who found it wasn’t so lucky.

This then shifts over to France. Our main character is Kaleb (Théo Christine). He is at a local store where he is messing with the owner, Ali (Samir Nait). Kaleb knows that this proprietor has better merchandise hidden and that he should be able to see it since he’s a good customer. This turns out to be true. He buys a set of earrings. He also sees a rare spider. Ali thinks it could be poisonous so Kaleb needs to be careful. Our character buys both items.

When he returns home, we get a better idea of where he lives. He helps Mme Zhao (Xing Xing Cheng) who seems like the superintendent or a custodian. He roughs up Moussa (Mahamadou Sangaré) for the mess he made. He then goes up to his apartment that he shares with his sister, Manon (Lisa Nyarko). She is remodeling the bathroom and this upsets Kaleb. What we learn is that their mother passed away. His sister wants to sell and leave. Kaleb doesn’t due to all the memories here as well as all the people that knew his mother around them. Their neighbors are leaving though, as they go to a going away party.

In Kaleb’s room, he has a mini-zoo. He has a range of insects, arachnids and reptiles. He gets upset as the lights and the heater keep getting shut off. He’s worried his pets will die. We then see how he can afford all this. He has a shoe trade. His partner is Mathys (Jérôme Niel). This guy is stealing bicycles which upsets Kaleb since he’s doing it in the area. Since it is low income, Kaleb doesn’t want those around him to suffer any more than they already do. Mathys understands and vows to return them. He also does MMA.

Now this spider that Kaleb has. He makes a home for it in an old shoebox. This doesn’t hold though and it gets out. He tries to seal his room until he can find it. There is a complication that it is much smarter and its will to survive greater. Kaleb is faced with seeing his ex-best friend as well, Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield). He along with his girlfriend, Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) come over to help with the bathroom. Mathys is there as well.

Things take a dark turn though when this spider reproduces. None of our characters realize what its potential is and how quickly it evolves. This complex is soon overrun and the police need to do what they can to hold it. That leads to a fight for survival.

That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that if you don’t like spiders, this is going to get under your skin. I’ve heard other reviews crediting this for taking the subject seriously as most using killer spiders tend to go whimsical. Whether that is making them large or just going lighter with the tone. This one is bleak and gave me vibes of [REC] with the idea that our characters get trapped inside this building and the police are quarantining them until a plan can be made. It is also interesting that this came out the same year as Sting, since this is a similar movie. They would make a good double feature.

Now that I have that out of the way, let’s delve deeper into the premise. This is a simple one. We have this dangerous spider that is living in the desert. It is found, captured and brought to France. Ali doesn’t know much about it and neither does Kaleb. This ignorance leads to everything. We have an old rundown building, which helps with the atmosphere. Trapping the people inside makes it contained. This legitimately goes terrifying as well with how quickly these spiders take over. That disrepair helps as well. It doesn’t feel like a cheat though with information that is found about them. Jordy thinks he found what species they are and that they will continue to grow larger to combat their predator in the area they live. In this case, humans. They evolve fast due to how quickly they reproduce.

Those parts of the concept help to make this scary. What aids in that is the development of the characters. We learn enough to the point where my anxiety went up worrying how they would survive. I’ll also include here the performances. Christine as Kaleb was good. He is naïve, but he’s also a good guy. He cares about this complex and the people inside. There is something that happened between him and Jordy, which is eating away at him. It adds heart when we finally learn what it is. Nyarko is good as his sister. She seems like she hates where they live, but there is more to it. That was good. I like Niel as his best friend. He isn’t dumb, but he doesn’t think things through. I love that he has his hero moments since we know that he’s a former boxer and now an MMA fighter. Oldfield and Lesaffre were also good to round out our main group. Other than that, I thought the rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed. Something I’ll credit here as well, no one feels safe as we go on.

Before moving away completely, I did want to bring up social commentary here. What I read was that it was intentional to be set in a low-income development. This shows not only that this place needs repairs, but that the police coming to help is delayed. There is also disregard for getting people out. I’ll say that this is a double-edged sword. Part of it is that they need to ensure no spiders do either. It also feels like everyone living here is expendable, tenant and cops alike. That adds tension knowing that. I thought that was well-done without being over the top.

Let’s then finish this out with filmmaking. The big thing here would be effects. My guess is that there were real spiders used where they could be. The rest was CGI. It looks good though. Part of that is this building is dark inside. The shadows help to hide things. That also allows the spiders to run rampant. The attack scenes were great. It made me uncomfortable. I’ll also credit the cinematography and the framing. The setting is great. Other than that, the sound design also adds to this. Hearing the noises the spiders make made my skin crawl. I’ll credit that as well.

In conclusion, this movie lived up to the hype for me. I thought that it had a simple premise that it took seriously. Taking this deadly spider that the people living in this building don’t know about and then it goes unchecked is terrifying. The effects were great, as was the cinematography, framing and sound design. Character development is also a big help. I know info about each one and care about what happens to them. I’d recommend this one for sure. Be warned, it is French so I watched it with subtitles. To be honest, there isn’t a lot of dialogue so that helps. Having now seen this a second time, I still enjoy it and think it is good. That has been solidified for me.

My Rating: 8 out of 10