Hostel and Saw have popularized a new subgenre of horror; the stark torture film. Yet if anyone thinks this genre is limited to America, think again. Frontier(s) is a French import with English subtitles that mimics the basic formula of films like Hostel to a “T,” as well as paying tribute to the subgenres’ progenitors, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The film begins with a massive political riot going on in Paris, from which a group of five revolutionaries attempt to flee. Rather than taking advantage of some nice overseas cruise deals, the instead flee the city in two separate cars.
Our focus is immediately drawn to the lone female revolutionary, Yasmine, whose brother was mortally wounded in their flight from the site of the riots; she leaves him to an uncertain fate in an emergency room, narrowly avoiding capture, and then continues fleeing from Paris.
We then jump to the other car, which contains two guys, one of whom made Yasmine pregnant but has decided to dump her anyway. They arrive at a small rural hotel (shades of Psycho) where a strange pair of women seem intent on seducing them rather than merely putting them up for the night. Instead, the men are separated and one is immediately killed while the other is strung up like a slab of meat in a human butchery.
Yup, it’s cannibalism central, folks, and these freaks like their meat in whatever state extended torture puts it in, rather than finely cared for. Oh well, if you’re willing to eat human flesh, I guess there’s not much room left for kosher butchery standards to be observed, is there?
That all happens in the first 15 minutes or so, so don’t worry about me giving away too much of what passes for a plot in this excruciatingly gory and largely cliché and boring torture-horror film. While the movie is an entry in After Dark’s Horrorfest “8 Films to Die For” collection, this one is hardly a stellar example of suspense-style horror and instead just subsists on a diet of shock-n-aweful.
There are very few watchable films in this disturbing and dark subgenre, but Frontier(s) is hardly one of the few that are watchable. There’s mercifully not much in the way of special features, either. Avoid it like the plague.
