Rating: B
Dir: Mathieu Turi.
Star: Samuel Le Bihan, Amir El Kacem, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Thomas Solivérès.
a.k.a. Gueules noires.
I’ll admit to not knowing much about this going in, and that might be the best way. “French creature feature” was about the extent of my knowledge. So if you like, simply accept my solid recommendation, go watch it, and we’ll see you back here later. Though if you want to know more… [Starship Troopers intensifies] It takes place in northern France, beginning with a 19th century prologue, deep underground, where miners break through into a new space and find something nasty. Fast forward to the 1950’s, where archaeologist Professeur Berthier (French cinema icon Anglade: it has been forty years since Betty Blue) convinces the mine owners to let him go down and “explore” the tunnels.
That’s a polite way of saying, “blow shit up,” and while he has some idea of what he’s messing with, the details only become apparent when they come across a massive sarcophagus. Some of the miners accompanying him open it up, hoping to find ancient treasure. You will probably be unsurprised to learn this was a very, very bad idea. That’s where I’ll stop any detailed synopsis. You can probably join the dots thereafter, with the men trying to find a way out of an increasingly perilous situation, and Berthier discovering that things could end up becoming worse still. Let’s just say, he name-checks Abdul Alhazred, the mad Arab of Lovecraftian lore, and author of the Necronomicon.
You will have to be patient with this. After the prologue, it’s almost an hour in before we get to see the monster. However, it remains interesting, in its depiction of French mining life of the time, and the characters who worked down there, such as Roland (Le Bihan) and Amir (El Kacem), an immigrant from North Africa, whose knowledge might come in handy. So I still found this reasonably engaging, albeit occasionally looking at my watch and wondering when the creature was going to feature. Then, it shows up, and… Damn. It’s amazingly practical, something you don’t often see executed at the size here, especially in a lower budget movie, and I’m prepared to forgive its occasionally janky appearance when in motion.
Although it’s not exactly going to win any foot-races, there are a couple of moments which are just brilliant. One is where an increasingly-panicked miner is left trying to illuminate his surroundings with the professor’s photographic flash-bulbs, as the creature gets closer (top). The other is at the end, where the creature itself becomes a puppeteer of sorts. Both genuinely had the hairs on the back of my neck doing the mambo. It certainly feels like Turi is a big fan of The Thing, and not just in the “group of people trapped with something radically beyond their understanding” way. For also, there is not a single woman here. Maybe he’s redressing the gender balance after the strongly female-focused horrors of Hostile and Meander.
[The film is out on streaming platforms in the US and UK from March 24th]