ONE HARSH CRITIC: Frontier(s)

Whoever made the trailer for this should be given some kind of award. Perhaps a medal. Certainly they should be given a raise.

Why? Because this film was absolutely horrible, yet the trailer managed to make this look like the scariest most innovative film to hit the theatres in years. So I say... Find the editor who made the trailer, and just give him a basket of Oscars.

Frontiers is a French film. That in itself means nothing, but its interesting that most American made horror films borrow the effective devices from foreign films. Frontiers, however, seems to take every cliché from American horror and cram them all side by side to create 2 hours of footage that's hard to sit through. It was almost like watching a Wayans' brothers spoof on the genre. Simply laughable.

Here's what I got as the story. Four French teens rob a bank during a time of riots and civil unrest. They agree to meet at a hotel in the middle of nowhere on their way to somewhere. They never really say where, but hey... why figure out the story when you're just going to kill everyone at the hotel anyway? Right? Sure...

The hotel is run by a bizarre bunch of cannibals seemingly run on the principles of the Nazi's fascist regime - oh yeah, and on the fact that eating people is a good plan. So the four run and run while people die and more and more light is shed on the Nazi cannibals, all of it predictable.

The story is weak. The acting is bad. The plot is predictable. The film isn't scary. Erratic camera movement doesn't make a film scary. Muscle convulsions don't translate as fear (at one point I thought the main character was having a seizure).  Plot holes can't be covered up by gore - ok, well maybe that's not true, but its certainly irritating.

What more can I say? I was duped by good trailer construction. So like I said... If you ever make a film, you NEED the guy who put that two minutes of film together, and pay him whatever he wants.

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Josh Gloer, Movie Correspondent

You can find Josh's column One Harsh Critic, published every other Sunday. Tuesday, Wednesday... (who can tell at this point?) at http://oneharshcritic.gather.com/.

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