Although I don’t love spiders I had never considered myself arachnophobic..until I saw ‘Infested.’ With the most effective (and plentiful) spiders I’ve ever seen on film, I’ve never wanted to walk out of a theater in the middle of a movie more in my life! This is the first feature for director/co-writer Sébastien Vanicek but it is easy to see why he’s already been tapped to direct the next ‘Evil Dead’ installment. ‘Infested’ is unrelentingly cruel but kept grounded with relatable characters in, at least somewhat, realistic situations.
What makes this film so good is what kept me in my seat even when the sheer quantity of spiders had me wanting to pace nervously up and down the theater aisles. The film follows Kaleb (Théo Christine), a gentle soul with an enthusiasm for reptiles, insects and arachnids, who lives in a gigantic low income apartment building in France with his sister Lila (Sofia Lesaffre). Although their mother has passed away the other residents of the building are like family to them and we quickly meet many of them at a going away party for a favorite neighbor. While this is about all the exposition we get, it’s also really all we need to understand the dynamics of the siblings and the building. When Kaleb buys a spider of unknown species to add to his collection he unwittingly unleashes hell on the entire building.
Credit: IFC FilmsI don’t know a lot about spiders in general and I sure hope nothing about this particular spider is based in reality because–holy shit. Once this little buddy gets loose she quickly sets about growing to enormous proportions while also breeding at a rate fast enough to essentially fill this 16 story building with creepy crawly nightmares. It’s not just that there are a lot of them and that many are very very big…these fuckers jump…right at your face! It also only takes one bite for agonizing, deadly pain. Great. Really nice time at the movies.
Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen something sinister unleashed on a packed apartment building filled with people of color who also happen to be poor, no new ground is paved in that respect. And I’m sure I also don’t have to tell you that the local authorities are not too terribly interested in helping out the people who have been trapped inside. Kaleb, Lila and their friends Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield), Mathys (Jérôme Niel) and Manon (Lisa Nyarko) are left to try to survive. All of the acting is great in this film, but Christine especially shines as Kaleb. We feel his sadness and isolation as he struggles to relate to those around him after his mother’s death. He approaches the cold blooded creatures in his care with a true warmth as though they were his own children. He wants the best for those around him, even as he inadvertently brings down the apocalypse on them and his guilt becomes palpable.
If you come to this film though, you are likely coming for the creature effects and you will not be disappointed. The spiders feel completely real and dangerous. While viewing, every single loose string on your clothing will start to feel like eight skittering legs as the arachnids nearly come out of the screen at you. I didn’t count how many times I said “NO!” out loud as characters continually did things that should never be done in a horror movie, but it was a lot! ‘Infested’ will land on Shudder soon but if you have any opportunity to see this in a theater you should do so just for the experience of feeling the entire room squirm and squeal in unison. The amount of manly screeches in my screening in particular was delightfully unexpected.
‘Infested‘ screened at Panic Fest 2024 on April 10th, 2024
