State of Horror Address: The New Wave of French Horror

    The French first surrendered to horror only a short time ago. Like a furious Napoleon, but with even more DVD sales, they raged overseas and made passionate love to American markets. And we embraced them, because their horror films were the moist, nay excrementally runny camembert to our hard and mouldy cheddars. But now we've forgotten about them like an uncle's unwanted touches. Has the Muse left them to star in a Japanese bukkake video? Has their inspiration run drier than Charles de Gaulle's foreskin? Or do we just have the attention spans of an epileptic monkey? Let's find out what made this phenomenon even shorter-lived than existentialist bellydancing.

    Even under the dictatorship of Jerry Lewis, there were French horror movies before High Tension (2003). But no-one in France could find the right red wine to accompany them, so they gave up. Finally, when the young Alexandre Aja fermented a Dr. Pepper, the New French Horror Film was born. With High Tension, the tasteless fish roe of Dean Koontz was so smothered with the Heinz Ketchup of gore, Americans had no choice but to eat it. Even before we'd swallowed the last spoonful of delicious Koontziar, Aja was letting us know it was a meaningful, lesbian love story all along. And his snobby, French accent was so compelling, nobody even minded the plot hole the size of Dean Koontz's mustache.

    Aja left France and, like Napoleon before him, dedicated himself to fun and gory remakes. But his massive, French balls had already done their damage in Paris. Like the leader of a gangrape, he set the model for what was to come.

    Pascal Laugier's Martyrs (2008), a film originally intended as a Bible epic follow-up to The Passion of the Christ (2004), is the most remarkable and extreme of the lot. Laugier took all the elements that made High Tension a charming Pepe Le Pew--things like character depth and suspense--and flushed them down the nearest street urinal. What remained was a gory, disturbing, and fun-free pure Pew. But he dowsed that Pew in enough pseudo-intellectual, self-important cologne, that we ate it up like a deep-fried eclaire, reminding us of Descartes's dictum, "I make you think I'm smarter than you, therefore I am."

    But where Descartes failed, Xavier Gens succeded with Frontier(s) (2007). Because Gens took all that made High Tension fun, but channelled it directly at the American cinematic prostate that is Nazi-hatin'. And the 's' in parentheses informed us that the gallons of inbred, Nazi blood actually means something. That's what we loved about these movies: they weren't content to just give us backwoods, inbred maniacs butchered with buzzsaws; they gave us backwoods, inbred maniacs butchered with ideas.

    More idea-butchery was going on in Fabrice du Welz's Calvaire (2004). So much so, no-one even noticed it's really a Belgian movie. Like a Louis Quatorze chaise, but with even more bestiality, Calvaire brought psychosexual profundity to the backwoods rape-torture movie. And, taking a page from Gerard Depardieu's autobiography, du Welz made his backwoods, gay rape respectable with Biblical motifs.

    But not all French horror movies are inflated bags of Sartrean nothingness. Some are filled with Sartrean party favors instead. Sheitan (2006), for instance, reminds us that French, inbred mutants can be just as fun as American, inbred mutants--and they can milk a goat even better. A l'interieur (2007) shows us not only the Italians have the cajones to carve out a fetus. And in Ils (2006) we find out French kids are every bit as shitty as our own. But most importantly, each of these films offers more tension than Marie Antoinette's cakehole, and at least as much unpretentious gore as Gerard Depardieu's wedding video.

    So why have we forgotten them like a Polanski rape charge? Because their commitment to the genre was flimsier than a soggy baguette? Because the few Frenchies still doing horror surrendered to American producers faster than they could say, "Jessica Biel"? Because we got tired of subtitles, so we're just gonna watch SyFy? Or because Japan and Korea are offering the same deal, but with more substance, plus a guarantee to commit seppuku in shame if we find their films dishonorable? Quicky: Yes, Yes, No, and Yes--not to be confused with the Japanese bukkake video of the same name.

    To be fair, there are still five people who believe the French make the best horror movies. And someday they may be rewarded with the Even Newer Wave of French Horror that will deluge them in buttery, gourmet horror treats. For now, the Wave has crashed in some kelp-choked sputters that sounded vaguely like, "La Horde," "Mutants," and "Jerry Lewis, pardonez nous." As of August, 2012, all hopes rest on Marina de Van, a film I haven't seen called Livide, and the long-delayed release of Jerry Lewis's The Day the Clown Cried, the goriest, most disturbing Holocaust film ever made. Until then, we'll just have to remember the Wave fondly and enjoy its treasures for what they are: a series of thrilling gorefests masquerading as art films.


    In memory of Jean Rollin.