Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury made quite a splash with their intensely effective siege film, Inside. But that was all the way back in 2007! Oh, what a time (the aughts) for French horror. The “New French Extremity” had genre fiends scouring forums and indie video stores for those sweet, disturbing imports. Many of us eagerly awaited follow up films from these filmmakers, hoping for lightning to strike twice. Unfortunately, that didn’t really happen for most of the creators associated with the movement. According to Pascal Laugier (director of Martyrs) in an interview with The Digital Fix, the works were not as well received in France as in other regions. Remaining in France and working within the French film industry proved challenging and many directors found their funding dwindling or drying up. Some made the jump to English language / American film with mixed success. All this is background for understanding Bustillo and Maury’s output after their amazing debut feature. And that background is one of long years between projects and lower budgets and distribution woes. They did manage to make films though. Including the focus of this post, Among the Living – a film released seven years after Inside (and three years after their film Livid, which I am now realizing is a pretty normal release schedule for features. oops). Let’s get into it, shall we?
A very pregnant woman (Béatrice Dalle) takes a break from catering to her apparently addled military vet husband to attack him, their young “freak” boy, and her own fetus/self. Cut to: Three middle school boys are sick of being treated like shit by their asshole teacher. Especially since this is the last day of school before summer! After a particularly humiliating incident, they cut out to play hooky and smoke some pilfered cigs. They upgrade their mischief to misdemeanor when they decide to set a local crank’s barn on fire and nearly kill him with an ax. (what scamps!) They flee to an abandoned film lot and stumble upon a hooded figure dragging a bound woman into one of the buildings. One of the boys (the one who reminds me of Finn Wolfhard) heads in to help her and the other two reluctantly follow. They fail, but escape determined to tell the cops despite being fugitives themselves. The cops half-assedly check it out and decide that the boys are just deflecting or have overactive imaginations. They are all remanded to their parents’ care. At home, each family is visited by the now vengeful hooded figure. Will our preteen antiheroes survive? And what does this have to do with that opening scene?
First off, let me cut right to the verdict… Among the Living is good! Does it compare to Inside? Hmm… nah. It’s a bit of an apples and oranges situation though. Inside made waves by being brutal, terrifying, and perfectly paced while also having (a very rare) woman vs woman central conflict. It was a breath of fresh air for horror fans at the time and still holds up today. Among the Living treads a more familiar path of protagonist(s) running afoul of a backwoods/backwards killer family. That isn’t to say that it’s trite or too familiar. It has its own twists and it cranks up the brutality at key points making it an effective horror film. Its child protagonists are flawed but they (especially the Finn Wolfhard type) try to do the right thing despite the danger they put themselves in. That’s commendable. It would be easy for Bustillo and Maury to paint these kids as innocent and naive to gain our sympathy cheaply. Instead, the boys earn it through their actions. Sounds like all the pieces are in place for a 10/10 movie, right? Well… (uh oh) not quite. This is another case of the parts not quite adding to a greater sum. (i know that idiom is backwards but i don’t care) It’s not bad! Not at all. In fact, as I said above, it’s good. It’s just not great. It’s not a film many fans will be talking about as one of the greats. That’s ok though. It’s worth a watch anyway. They can’t all be bangers!
The Final Cut: Among the Living is a decent ride that falls just short of really good. It’s definitely worth a watch, especially for fans of Bustillo and Maury, but it just doesn’t reach the intense highs of their most celebrated effort – Inside.
No Real Danger 