Frontier(s)

Frontier(s)
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Xavier Gens
Produced by	Laurent Tolleron
Written by	Xavier Gens
Starring	Aurélien Wiik Samuel Le Bihan Estelle Lefébure
Music by	Jean-Pierre Taieb
Cinematography	Laurent Barès
Edited by	Carlo Rizzo
Production company	BR Films Cartel Productions Chemin Vert Pacific Films
Distributed by	EuropaCorp
Release dates	1 July 2007 (2007-07-01) (Agde Film Festival)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	France Switzerland
Language	French German
Budget	$3 million

Frontier(s) (French: Frontière(s)) is a 2007 French horror film written and directed by Xavier Gens and stars Estelle Lefébure, Samuel Le Bihan and Aurélien Wiik.

Plot

A far-right candidate is elected to the French presidency, sparking riots in Paris. Hoping to escape Paris but needing cash, Alex (Aurélien Wiik), Tom (David Saracino), Farid (Chems Dahmani), the pregnant Yasmine (Karina Testa), and her brother Sami (Adel Bencherif) take advantage of the chaos to pull off a robbery. Sami is shot and the group splits up: Alex and Yasmine take Sami to a hospital, and Tom and Farid take the money to a family-run inn near the border. Innkeepers Gilberte (Estelle Lefébure) and Klaudia (Amélie Daure) claim their rooms are free and seduce the two men.

At the hospital, the emergency room staff report Sami's injury to the police. Sami insists Yasmine run before the police catch her. His dying wish is that Yasmine not have an abortion. Alex and Yasmine flee, phoning their friends for directions to the inn. Tom and Farid give them directions but soon after are brutally attacked by Gilberte, Klaudia, and Goetz (Samuel Le Bihan). When Tom and Farid try to escape, Goetz runs their car off a cliff. The injured men wander into a mine shaft, where Tom is quickly recaptured. Farid must fend for himself in the mine with the family's rejected children. Unaware of the danger, Alex and Yasmine arrive at the inn and are captured by the family.

Alex and Yasmine are chained in a muddy-floored pig pen. Alex breaks Yasmine's chains and allows her to escape. When the captors discover Yasmine's escape, the family patriarch, von Geisler (Jean-Pierre Jorris), cuts Alex's Achilles tendons. Meanwhile, in the mine, Farid finds the storage area for the victims. The family realizes something is amiss in the mine, and Hans (Joël Lefrançois) chases Farid into a boiler where Farid is cooked alive. Yasmine flees from the inn but is quickly picked back up by Goetz. Back in the pig pen, von Geisler personally grants Alex's last wish, which is to be put down quickly. Initially, von Geisler wishes for Karl (Patrick Ligardes) to "wed" Yasmine to carry on the family lineage, but when von Geisler learns she is already pregnant, he entrusts her to the meek Eva (Maud Forget), who tells Yasmine that she came to the family in a very similar manner and that she is obedient because the family promised her that her parents would return for her some day. Eva also tells Yasmine of the rejected children she and Hans care for in the mine.

Eventually, Eva leads Yasmine down to dinner, where the family awaits her. Von Geisler is revealed to be a former (and still practicing) Nazi. Von Geisler offers up a toast to the new blood and Yasmine quickly grabs a large knife and takes von Geisler hostage. Hans grabs a shotgun and shoots and kills von Geisler in the confusion; Karl shoots Hans dead in turn. Yasmine escapes and is chased by Karl and Goetz into the mine. Yasmine eventually makes her way into one of the body storage rooms where she fights with Goetz. After a bloody struggle, she repeatedly hits him with an axe before impaling him on a rotating table saw. Karl catches Yasmine as she tries to return to the surface, but Eva comes to the rescue, blowing off Karl's head. Yasmine searches for car keys, but is ambushed by Gilberte and Klaudia. During the shootout, Yasmine hits a gas tank, blowing up the room. Gilberte survives the explosion and attempts to kill Yasmine only to have her throat torn out by her. With everyone else dead, Yasmine tries to persuade Eva to leave with her, but Eva stays to take care of the children in the mine. On the road, Yasmine runs into a police blockade where she surrenders to the authorities.

Cast

• Aurélien Wiik as Alex
• Samuel Le Bihan as Goetz
• Estelle Lefébure as Gilberte
• Karina Testa as Yasmine
• David Saracino as Tom
• Chems Dahmani as Farid
• Adel Bencherif as Sami
• Maud Forget as Eva
• Amélie Daure as Klaudia
• Rosine Favey as La mere
• Joël Lefrançois as Hans
• Patrick Ligardes as Karl
• Jean-Pierre Jorris as Von Geisler

Release

Frontier(s) was intended to be one of the 8 Films to Die For at Horrorfest 2007, but due to the MPAA giving the film an NC-17 rating, it instead hit a limited number of 10 US theaters unrated for one weekend where it grossed $9,913 before being released on DVD the following week.

Critical reception

File:Equipe film frontieres.jpg

Frontier(s)'s crew at Fantastic'Arts 2008 festival

The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of 2010, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 55% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 20 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 44 out of 100, based on 5 reviews.

External links

• Frontier(s) at IMDb
• Frontier(s) at Rotten Tomatoes
• Frontier(s) at Metacritic