REVIEW – LIVID

4.0 Out of 5

A young nurse in training is being showed the ropes dealing with the patients she will be looking after.  The last patient is an old lady who is in a coma hoped up to a respirator.  Legend has it that somewhere in this house is a treasure but no one knows where or what this treasure is.  Later back at the local pub her boyfriend and her brother decide they will break in and take some of the treasure.  Her boyfriend is a fisherman and doesn’t want to die at sea like his father did.  He wants a better life for them and he sees this treasure as a means to an end.  Once  at the manor, they break in and start to snoop around the creepy old house.  What they find should have stayed hidden.

LIVID is a French horror film and is brought to you by the company that made the film INSIDE.  This film covers a few genres during the course of the movie, straight horror, ghost story, and also has some fantasy elements in there as well.  Everything about this movie is well crafted and put together for a very chilling and scary romp through one of the creepiest houses I have seen in a long while.  This film is very atmospheric and relies a lot on sound and creepy visuals to send chills down your spine and make your skin crawl.  The ending to the film is one I didn’t see coming and getting there is like slowly going through madness.  Definitely a movie to watch with the lights out and the sound turned up.

The movie is subtitled but the subtitles were horrible.  They were too literally translated and there were at times the dialogue didn’t make sense, though it wasn’t hard to follow.  What did make sense helped with the understanding of the story, and also through the visuals it wasn’t hard to determine what was going on.

The movie is both written and directed by the team of Alexandre  Bustillo and Julien Maury.  They have brought to life a very beautiful looking horror film.  It is well shot and very well directed.  The pair take their time telling the story to help building the tension and the horror in the scenes that follow.  It is a wonder to behold on screen.  I wish I could say the same for their screenplay.  As much as I did love the movie, there were holes in the story, and I found that to be the weakest part of the movie.  The characters were well defined and the story well setup but part of the execution lacked a little.  I found there were some things that were brought into light but left without any explanation whatsoever.  They know how to shoot a beautiful piece of work, they just need to work on tightening up their writing.

The acting in the film by the cast was good.  It wasn’t cheesy or over the top which made me happy when watching the film because it isn’t an over the top style of movie.  Nothing stellar to point out in the acting department just that overall the acting was solid.

The effects in the movie, what little there were, were good.  They fit the scenes well and didn’t look fake. A good job should be noted to the make up department for the wonderful facial makeup work.  Very low key and very creepy.

I was generally thrilled with the movie overall.  There were plenty of genuine scares and the creepy tension building up really added to the horror of the film.  With a better written story I think this could have been a 5 star out of 5 movie.  Definitely one to get to watch around Halloween time.

I give this movie 4 stars out of 5.  This movie will chill you and I think the ending will surprise you.  If you have a chance to see this movie do it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.  Till next time my friends.