Some lines should not be crossed. . .

Well, here it is at last. The movie that rather infamously had to be left out of the 2nd Annual After Dark Horrorfest because it crossed too many lines and received an NC-17 rating. Lionsgate releases the grisly Frontier(s) on DVD with the same "After Dark Horrorfest" banner art that the 8 films in the 2007 film festival received on home video, so Frontier(s) can now be placed on the shelf beside its sister titles as originally intended.

I think a number of horror film fans here in the United States were curious about this French import, and while it doesn't quite live up to its notoriety, it is an intense and bloody exercise in misanthropy - a sort of hybrid of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hostel. This most certainly isn't for everyone, but horror film fans will appreciate it, especially since Lionsgate released the movie in an unrated director's cut.

Frontier(s) begins with a rapidly edited title sequence of civil unrest in France, which was a little reminiscent of the opening to 28 Days Later and the barrage of violent television images that started that apocalyptic classic. It's in this malaise that a young gang attempts a bank robbery that goes awry. One of the gang's members is Yasmine (played by the stunningly beautiful Karina Testa) who is 3 months pregnant. Her brother has been shot and the gang separated - although they agree to meet up at a hostel out in the middle of nowhere far away from other people (in the land of horror movies, warning bells should already be ringing).

And boy, what a decrepit place it is filled with oddball characters - from overtly flirtatious and loose women to an overweight butcher to a sickly grandmother who seems to be two heartbeats away from meeting her maker. One by one, the gang succumbs to the ghastly goings-on at this remote hostel - all to the leadership of an ex-Nazi who is interested in creating a pure extended family in his house of horrors.

Much has been written about the political underpinnings of this film; indeed, Cameron McGaughy has expounded upon this himself in another review of Frontier(s) available here. American audiences need not necessarily worry about knowing the French political climate to appreciate this film - although, of course, it doesn't hurt - as the movie operates fairly well on its own as a tale of survival in extreme brutality.

Two major flaws disappointed me a bit with this film. One, Frontier(s) suffers from a syndrome that afflicts many action and horror movies. Bad guys suddenly become very poor shots when it comes to the lead hero / heroine. The character of Yasmine serves as the final girl here, and she manages to dodge gunfire - including two entire clips from a machine gun - from her well-armed captors over the course of the movie, straining credulity to the breaking point. Second, with its crazed and mutant family of murderers, there's a lot of similarity between Frontier(s) and the backwoods horror type films like Wrong Turn and its ilk. This includes a young girl sympathetic to the plight of the victims who seems to be ripped right out of The Hills Have Eyes.

Still, the second half of Frontier(s) is full of tense, gore-soaked horror and it's well-shot and well-acted. The ending is memorable in that, as in a lot of other movies of this nature, the heroine resorts to an act of animal savagery to survive that is genuinely shocking and symptomatic of the results of having endured through the unspeakable acts of cruelty in the movie. Recommended - but not to those who are faint of heart.

The DVD

Video:

On the back cover of its DVD art, Frontier(s) is advertised as having a "16x9 widescreen 2.35:1 DVD screen format," and indeed, that's what you get. The anamorphic image has good detail. Color tends to be a bit muted, but that seems to be part of the visual aesthetic of the film.

Sound:

There are two audio tracks available: French 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio and French 2.0 Dolby Digital Audio. The former seems to be the default track and thus the one I listened to. The audio was very well-rendered. The score nicely enhanced the gloomy mood of the film without being overbearing, and the dialogue and sound effects were mixed in nicely.

As you might have surmised from the start of the previous paragraph, there is no English language track for the film. I actually liked that fact as listening to the original French version only added to the "realism" of the film experience, but viewers who hate reading subtitles will want to keep this fact in mind. English and Spanish subtitle options are available.

Extras:

When the disc is played, trailers automatically precede the main menu for Midnight Meat Train, FearNET, The 2nd Annual After Dark Horrorfest, The Backwoods, Rambo, and High Tension. These trailers are made available collectively under an Also From Lionsgate link in the main menu.

I was stunned to see that there were no extras related to Frontier(s) itself - very disappointing.

Final Thoughts:

Certainly not for the faint of heart, the unrated director's cut of Frontier(s) is a gripping - if overfamiliar - French import that serves up the goods for hardcore horror film fans. Recommended if you can handle extreme violence and gore.

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