The problem with films shot in one take (or constructed to look as if they were) is that the filmmaker’s priority is often weighted towards technical and not narrative or character considerations. For every 1917, with a one-take appearance that provided no relief from the hell of World War I, or 2002’s monumental Russian Ark, which introduced us to centuries of Russian history, there’s Irréversible, Gaspar Noé’s reprehensible exercise in sexual violence, or 2011’s Silent House, where Elizabeth Olsen played second fiddle to camerawork and a horror atmosphere.
Somewhere between those extremes we have the one-take (actually five takes stitched together) MadS, which has the additional burden of being directed by David Moreau, whose films tend to have more running time than story. That was certainly the case with his 2006 suspense film Ils (Them in French) and his young adult riff on M. Night Shyamalan, Seuls (Alone in French). It’s also the case in MadS. Here he hitches his stylistic wagon to a genre—the viral outbreak horror/thriller—that’s starting to feel a bit tired.
In this case, Moreau delivers apocalyptic dread so effectively, and at such a headlong pace, that the thin story and the ever-present negative hallmarks of his films are easier to forgive. Featuring a trio of committed lead performances, MadS is a disturbing little freak-out that adds to our post-pandemic worry that there’s not much standing between humankind and the apocalypse it so richly deserves.
Single-Take Style Adds Mystery and Dread
After taking a new drug, a young man named Romain picks up a mysterious, injured woman who begins behaving erratically and violently in his car. As his night spirals into chaos, Romain struggles to distinguish between the effects of the drug and the terrifying reality unfolding around him.
- Release Date
- September 21, 2024
- Director
- David Moreau
- Cast
- Lewkowski Yovel , Lucille Guillaume , Milton Riche , Laurie Pavy , Xiomara Melissa Ahumada Quito
- Runtime
- 86 Minutes
- Writers
- David Moreau
- Appearing as one continuous take ratchets up the tension.
- One of the most disturbing horror films of the year.
- It features three very effective and committed performances.
- The story is ultimately pretty thin.
- It has nothing new to say about a subject that's been covered in many similar films.
One upside to presenting MadS in a single take is that the intimate POV guarantees we only know what the character we’re following knows, which adds to the mystery and dread. And with only three main characters, Moreau — who also wrote the script — can parcel out crucial information in deathly anticipated morsels even if the information turns out to be no more interesting than in similar thrillers.
The first inkling of what’s to come arrives in the passenger seat of 18-year-old Romain’s (Milton Riche) borrowed Mustang. High on birthday vibes and a new form of nose candy, Romain pulls over to attend to some fallen cigarette ashes when a crazed and heavily bandaged woman jumps into his car with evidence that she’s been the victim of some horrific experiment. As the panicked Romain drives her to the hospital, she stabs herself repeatedly, splattering him with blood. Before long, he’s bleeding from his nose and drifting around in a daze at a rave party.
The 10 Scariest French Films of All Time
Some of the most frightening films from their respective decades were made in the region at hand. These are the scariest French films, ranked.
A Viral Outbreak or a Bad Drug Trip?
French horror filmmakers seem to have an affinity for using club culture or the drug-imbibing predilections of French teens and young adults as a springboard for graphic descents into violence. So it’s no accident that Moreau wants us to consider that the only three people we meet during the film, Romain, his girlfriend Anais (Laurie Pavy), and her friend Julia (Lucille Guillaume), are just on a bad drug trip having all snorted the same powdered, red-colored stimulant. But in the age of zombie cinema, this is not as fun as indulging our end-of-the-world fears with the more likely theory that MadS is a straight-ahead viral outbreak film, as stubbornly hewed to its genre as Ils was to the home invasion thriller.
Still, Moreau finds enough odd beats and misdirects to add moments of surprise and even humor. When Romain, whose facial tics and glowing eyes are becoming more ominous, rushes home on a bicycle to see who has broken into his house, his frantic call to the home security company features super-chill hold music, a cheeky way of giving us a break from the tension. Otherwise, Moreau is hellbent on ratcheting up the pressure, helped by the full-bodied sound design and Nathaniel Méchaly propulsive score that drill the unfolding horror into our heads.
The Best Zombie Movies of All Time
From Dawn of the Dead to Shaun of the Dead, these are the best zombie movies ever made over the past six decades.
Three Chapters, Three Increasingly Horrific Stories
Moreau neatly divides the film into three loose chapters as one character cedes the stage to the next. The changing POV allows us to learn more about the effects of the virus and what the wider world might be experiencing. This is helpful since there’s only so much of Romain wandering around town and freaking out in disbelief that we need.
So what really gets MadS going is when he reluctantly exits in favor of Anais, allowing Pavy to go full tilt as she runs, screams, panics and even giggles her way around her French suburb as the virus takes hold. In the third and final chapter, Anais hands the narrative to Julia during a startling scene where an increasingly unhinged Anais rides on the back of Julia’s scooter, smearing her with blood.
Cinematographer Philip Lozano is the MVP here, blocking and shooting the action with an eye on locking us into each character's experience while also keeping his camera from jostling at Cloverfield levels of annoyance. This degree of emersion helps mitigate the feeling that there’s ultimately not much to this story. Indeed, Ils was similarly thin and that one was only 74 minutes. But unlike Moreau’s previous films, the skillfully conceived MadS is often quite unnerving in a way that only post-Covid films can be. It plays off our modern-day fears of helplessness in the face of inescapable, often invisible, threats and every teenager’s eventual realization that today’s world is not one big rave.
MadS is a production of Les Enfants Terribles and will be available to stream on Shudder beginning Friday, October 18.
Comments
Post a Comment