The Night Eats The World
Extreme French horror almost seems like a thing of the past at this point. Films like
High Tension or
Inside aren't made anymore, at least by the French. They really seemed to have had a grasp on the genre and pumped out a few unforgettable films in the mid to late naughts. To to get away from that for a second,
The Night Eats The World is a french zombie horror film. That's just an irrefutable fact. Is it extreme in it's depiction of gore and fingers through your eyes horror? Depends on who you are I suppose. I for one am very impressed with this film, despite the fact that I enjoy my French horror with disgusting amounts of blood shed. What sets this film apart is exactly what I admire about it. To deviate for a minute, this film is fairly simple. Man goes to ex-girlfriends flat during a party to pick up some mixtapes he left behind. I presume while they were living together and he happens to fall asleep in a locked room to avoid anymore party-goers. He stumbles the next morning to find out the world has befallen bedlam. No one's in the blood splattered apartment anymore and it's only him and the window looking down the street where he realizes his world now consists of surviving whatever is going on. Zombies are parading the streets of Paris looking for their next brain. At this point zombie films are a dime a dozen (thank you almighty George A. Romero) but what this film does differently is actually give an atmosphere that seems unrivaled in modern zombie fare. It takes place in one location and rarely gets anywhere else. It's grounded in realism that felt very refreshing. The lead protagonists was a sympathetic enough character that handles the situation with a stoic enough approach until the moment he doesn't. Obviously the film doesn't end in the same place it began but getting to that point I really felt for the lead character and his method of staying alive. Back to the atmosphere for a second, the zombies in this film are quieter than a mouse. They rarely gargle and grunt their way to flesh, they're more ghostly and their presence is felt more because of it. They're running zombies though, not the zombie of the old that walks their way to murder. For the most part they stand around to look menacing, and it truly works.
The Night Eats The World is a great telling title because it's exactly how the film starts. Overnight, this apocalypse of our worst nightmare becomes true and no amount of military help or aid is anywhere in sight. It never feels stringed along either. It never hobbles to the finish line so to speak. It's perfectly paced and lean and mean when it needs to be. A few zombie heads get popped here and there but the focus of the film is the main character doing what he can to gather food and clean water and to maintain his sanity. With all great horror films, the sanity of this man completely depletes by the end but everything he did up until that point are noteworthy. There's also a great scene where he opens up the window to this 5 story apartment he broke into for supplies and finds this young punks drum kit and shreds for a few minutes. The noise attracts hundreds of walking dead and it brings a wee bit of levity to this story. The film isn't like Shaun Of The Dead in that it's trying to exploit us for laughs, which I think perhaps brings my score down a bit. It takes itself a little too seriously and for that I think a few more laughs would've been great. Although I admit there's a paintball scene and I was nearly in tears.
All In All,
The Night Eats The World is a low enough budget film where getting away with a premise like this is extremely admirable. The French might've gotten far enough away from extreme horror, but if this is the alternative, I'll be okay with another French revolution.
B+