Red-Barracuda In the last decade there certainly has been a significant cycle of French horror films. Quite a lot of the most famous ones have focused on the more sadistic end of the genre, presenting torture, gore and general nastiness in new, often unusual, ways. Livid clearly indicates that Gallic horror comes in many shapes though, as this one relies considerably more on atmosphere rather than full-on violence. Its story has three young thieves breaking into a remote mansion one Halloween night; the only resident of this villa being a very elderly comatose former ballet teacher who they have heard has a 'hidden treasure' stashed away somewhere in the house. The trio, however, encounter far more than they could ever have bargained for and a night of uncanny horror ensues.This film is typified quite a bit by being a hybrid of genres. It's not strictly a haunted house film, although it often feels like one, it has fairy tale aspects yet could never be exactly described as a pure fantasy and while it does rely largely on atmosphere it often has scenes of visceral violence. This undefinable aspect is amplified further by a storyline that wilfully never makes complete sense and has many aspects that hang in the air somewhat. Unlike a lot of other people seemingly, I can't say any of the above really bothered me at all. In fact I thought it added up to a distinctive bit of Gothic horror.It's very nicely photographed throughout and the detailed, dusty interiors of the house are an interesting setting. There are many macabre things in here and some are quite strikingly different; the clockwork corpse being a good example of original thought from the film-makers. Pleasingly, it does get quite scary from time to time as well, with the evil old woman and her undead daughter being pretty sinister adversaries and interesting creations. As the story progresses flashbacks are used to explain events. But these generate as many questions as they do answers and by the end there is a definite enigmatic quality to much of what we have just seen. This ambiguity has been earned though; sometimes it's best for a dark fairy-tale to not reveal all its secrets.

michschlueter I watch plenty of horror movies and very often I am bored. The reason is: in this genre, movies often follow the same old story lines. This movie is different and that might be its biggest problem. It is not a real splatter movie, it is not a real haunted house movie, it is not a real fantasy movie or a real monster/vampire movie. It is a unique mixture of many genres and I can understand that some people don't like this film. Are there plot holes? YES! Does everything make sense? NO! Are there lame moments? YES! BUT: I really enjoyed it. I loved the atmosphere, the soundtrack and the poetic moments close to the end. This is one movie that will become a part of my Bluray collection. So my recommendation: Get some nice wine or a good cup of tea and slip under a warm blanket. In my opinion is this a movie for a great evening in autumn.

Rich Wright Looking round a spooky old house inhabited by no-one but a comatose old lady for hidden treasure is usually not a good idea. Especially on Halloween. At the dead of night. This building is chock full of stuffed creatures, dusty relics and boarded up windows. But our three interlopers are desperate to get out of their dead-end lives, so in they go... and it turns out to be the worst mistake of their (soon to be cut short) young lives.The best horror films always have a good atmosphere, and you can feel every creak of the floorboards and each goose-pimple developing as the intrepid trio do their rounds. There are no cheap, easy deaths here... each one is built up careful and slow, until the nasty denouement. And these are people who given *gasp* BACK STORIES and what they says sounds like it could come from the mouth of a person, rather than a simple lamb to the slaughter.I'm not quite sure I understood all the plot details (even at the end) but what I can report is the execution is ingenious and genuinely disturbing. A horror with some semblance of originality, who'd have thunk it? Perhaps because it was made in France... away from the jaded genre prototypes of the USA. Coming soon: a remake, where they remove most of the chilling ambiance, and replace it with an unsubtle bloodbath, And a sassy robot. You know it's certain... 7/10

milosz-skow My initial expectations were that this film would be a classic teenager-slaughter-haunted-house-screamer type of horror. All I knew about it was what was written in the description on IMDb. I didn't read the reviews or the message boards, fearing spoilers, and I didn't pay much attention to the rating either, as somewhere along the line of 7.0 tend to be the upper end of the scale for horror movies on IMDb.I was wrong in my initial assumptions. The film is not a gore flick in a classic meaning of this term. Yes, there is quite a lot of blood, fresh wounds and bodily harm, but it is certainly not the main component of this film. And I'm not talking suspense or survival either. The main component of this movie is... *dramatic drum roll* ...writer/directors' poorly executed ideas! Don't get me wrong, it's symbolism in its best - there is a second and indeed a third bottom to this story. It is just so distractingly told it takes away all the immersion and replaces it with a feeling of... You know that feeling when after seeing a stand-up comedy show your friend starts re-telling one of the jokes that the comedian told, but for some reason it just doesn't sound very funny at all? It's THAT feeling - awkwardness mixed up with appreciation and contempt... sort of.The story follows a young caregiver and her two male companions, as they make their way into an old woman's house, to acquire some of her possessions in a less-than-legal way. Without spoiling too much, I can tell that what follows is an interesting, though as I said poorly executed journey into the history of the house and its owners. There is bloodshed of course and a few loud-noise-sudden-movement type of scares, which are, sadly, predictable. But there is more bad news than good news I'm afraid. While the story is moving and original, the characters are underdeveloped and hard to relate to. Sometimes they act irrationally and not even in the classic "let's check this dark basement" kind of way - they just do weird things against all reason and in a ridiculously scripted manner. Some of the events, though evoke symbolic meanings, do not fit very well into the overall mood of the scene, or the film in general.Acting is bad. There are only a couple of decent performances, and that's Catherine Jacob as Catherine Wilson and Chloé Marcq as Anna. The rest was just bad - especially Jérémy Kapone as Ben - even when afraid he just looks bored. Because of the poor acting and underdeveloped characters you never really connect with any of the protagonists.There are of course good sides to the film as well - the story is interesting, the setting is atmospheric and very detailed. The mood is there for the most part and that is all extremely important for a horror movie to give the viewer what he wants: a piece of shiver-inducing entertainment.In closing, I must say that as hard as it is to make even a half-decent horror movie, to make a horror movie that has as much depth and complexity as Livid is even harder. And because Livid pulls it off and manages to deliver a few scares here and there, it deserves at least some recognition.Thank you for reading, and enjoy the film if you haven't watched it already.