Infested review.
Arachnophobes beware…Infested has the goods.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Infested
Directed by Sébastien Vanicek
Screenplay by Florent Bernard and Sébastien Vanicek
Starring Théo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre, Jérôme Niel, Lisa Nyarko, Finnegan Oldfield, Marie-Philomène Nga and Ike Zacsongo
Infested Review
It’s obvious from the first scene in Infested that the movie’s spider thrills are going to work. A character peers into a hole in the desert and we wait for what feels like an interminable amount of time for the inevitable to happen. In reality it’s only a few moments…but the knowledge of what’s going to come crawling out of that hole makes each one count. This isn’t a movie for the faint at heart. If spiders are your greatest fear…you aren’t going to find much respite in Infested. It knows what you are afraid of…and it knows how to use it against you.
Kaleb (Théo Christine) is an enthusiast in the world of the creepy crawlies. He purchases a potentially poisonous desert spider for his collection. Kaleb places him in a shoebox for the night…planning on building it a proper home in the morning. A shoebox proves a too easy escape for the spider. Kaleb, and his entire apartment building, may not make it to the morning.
Infested does things differently than fellow arachnid-based horror movie Sting. For one thing…the latter was actually about an alien that looked like a spider. It played things for gooey fun while also providing a deadly antagonist. Infested presents an uncountable number of antagonists. They seem to multiply as fast as the scurry out of every crevice in the building. It trades laugh lines for spine tingles. Let this serve as a serious warning for people who have a problem even looking at spiders on their televisions. This is a movie that goes for the jugular.
It doesn’t do so straight away, however. Infested invests in a proper first act…introducing us to Kaleb and a host of other people we will follow throughout the movie. He has an icy relationship with his sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko). Things aren’t all that much warmer with friends Mathys (Jérôme Niel), Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) and Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield) either. Kaleb makes for an interesting lead character. He is rough around the edges…but we see enough to mark him as a good person. People look at him and think “drug dealer” but he genuinely tries to be a helpful person in the building. Which makes the deadly fallout from his hobby a heartbreaking turn of events for him. He’s at fault, even if incidentally, and looks every bit the problem people try to label him as.
Kaleb’s complexities are eventually overshadowed by the cloud of spiders that loom over everything. We’re talking an unbeatable number of eight-legged freaks. This particular breed of spider lays eggs in whatever organism it crawls into. The result of which is near instant mounds of them. For extra fun…they can get quite big. A mother spider can grow to ten times their normal size when protecting their offspring. Infested becomes a survival story. The group of friends are trapped in their apartment building…first by order of the police following the discovery of the first spider related body…later by the sheer number of arachnids blocking every possible exit.
This allows Infested to do what it does best. Spider horror. Jump scares…suspense…tension. If there is something for first time feature director Sébastien Vanicek to use against your fear of spiders…he uses it. People repeatedly stick their heads into places full of spiders. It works every time. The unease of watching someone try to capture one provides a memorable scene. Especially when his friends start to show up. The standout moment involves a hallway lined with webs and the creatures who made them. Every perceivable inch covered by the deadly crawlers. The group must cross the hallway to have any hope of escaping. It’s a completely unnerving experience that you won’t soon forget.
Infested is another strong addition to the Shudder original library. With the recent release of Late Night with the Devil and the upcoming Stopmotion (not to mention the ongoing season of The Last Drive-in) …Shudder is back on top of its game. If you can handle the sight of endless spiders crawling from every corner of the screen…Infested is well worth watching. If you know someone who can’t, well…you know what to do.
Scare Value
The warning to arachnophobes isn’t in jest. Infested weaponizes its eight-legged menaces better than most. The sheer number of them, combined with a seemingly unwinnable situation, creates some genuine and effective horror. It’s the perfect movie for anyone who is afraid of spiders…but can handle seeing them on their screen. Just not on their screen.
3.5/5
Infested Link
Streaming on Shudder
