3 out of 5

Director: Xavier Gens

Frontier(s) is average horror – teens on the run decide to stay at the wrong place – that’s given a little extra kick in the pants by an overall grimy look and a nice balance between flashy and patient direction. I normally have plenty of boring nonsense to spout about even the most simple of movies, but Frontier(s), to its detriment, didn’t really set any gears spinning. It’s presentation wants to be demented, or dark, and it has its share of gore and bleak concepts, but the film has a hard time breaking away from the “been there/done that” formula. Maybe the political setting (some kind of commentary on France, I’m sure) prevents the film from spending time on its characters, but none of the principals make an impact, and when they hole up with the weirdo family, there’s not even an element of impending dread… you just sort of understand that people are going to die. This all sounds very negative, but the movie is watchable. It has a nice visual sense and even if the scenes that are meant to be impactful/scary aren’t, they are still valuable in the context of the movie. Not a must see, but not American horror-remake tripe either.