Infested is a French movie about a low-income apartment building in Paris overrun by an invasive spider species. Locked in by the police, the residents have to battle the spiders and try to make their way out to safety.
I saw this movie getting some pretty great early reviews. Having just had the somewhat disappointing experience of Late Night With the Devil not living up to the hype, I went into this one not expecting much.
Brother, was I ever wrong.
As a creature feature, this movie is almost perfectly executed. I went in expecting to see lots of spiders and Infested certainly does not disappoint in this regard. But what is notable is all the times the movie chooses not to show something that a lesser film would have shown. Over and over, this movie cuts away at just the right moment, leaves something slightly outside the frame or out of focus, and is so much better for it.
There is a small handful of horror movies I have seen over the course of my life that have kept me tense for nearly the entire run-time. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Aliens, and [REC] are the ones that come to mind. This one is now on the list—the editing, the effects, the sound design, and the performances all work together almost seamlessly to create a nonstop sense of dread and tension.
And the spiders themselves are great! I don’t even have a problem with spiders—I am the designated spider-remover in our house—and there were multiple points in this movie where I was literally watching through my fingers. They skitter and scurry and burst out of dark corners and it is absolutely horrifying.
But I think what really puts this movie over the top for me was the way it managed to make me care about the main characters and their backstories. It gave me just enough info about each of them to make them seem like real people with understandable motivations. These are not just throw-aways (even though they are treated that way by the authorities within the story) and I really felt it when they were in danger, and even moreso when they have to make sacrifices for the good of the group.
I mentioned James Cameron’s Aliens earlier and I think the comparison is illustrative.
On paper, they are kind of the same movie: a small group of people with a reluctant leader trapped in a confined location with a numerically superior, aggressive foe. In practice, they are very different, and while I always enjoy Aliens, I kind of think Infested is the better movie. The story is smarter, the characters are more interesting, and the ending is more thoughtful and meaningful.
Infested is definitely at the top of my list so far in 2024 and it is at least on par with Host and Barbarian from the previous several years. Strongly recommend!