When my wife and I lived in our cozy little downtown apartment, we never really worried about home invasion too much. We lived above an office complex, you see, and most people — with the exception of the Wok-N-Go and Domino's Pizza delivery drivers — had no idea we were up there, watching the world go by from our secluded little pad. God, I really miss that place sometimes, especially when it's time to mow the lawn again. God, I really hate suburban life. Insert loud, earth-shattering nostalgic sigh here.
Anyway, when we made the leap from downtown hipsters to square suburbanites, the prospect of someone kicking in our front door and saying "How ya doin'?" became all too real. We're a paranoid lot to begin with, our ears super-sensitive to sounds that don't jive with the usual neighborhood noise.
So when Clementine awakens her husband Lucas after hearing something strange outside in David Moreau and Xavier Palud's effective effort Ils (aka Them), I knew I was in for a spooky good time. In fact, Ils is probably the scariest horror film since Session 9 crept its way under my lily white skin years ago. My patented Suspense-O-Meter was literally screaming for mercy after the first half-hour, though I managed to apply enough diet soda and Cheese Nips to prevent it from sustaining serious injury.
The first ten minutes pretty much set the stage for the entire film: There's something evil lurking in the Romanian woods, and all it wants to do is kill, kill, kill. Unfortunately for Clementine and her husband Lucas, this lurking terror has set its sights on their secluded mansion, forcing the young couple to fight for their very lives over the course of one blood-curdling evening. Are these intruders human? Supernatural? The answer may surprise you as the film barrels towards a very unconventional conclusion, one that literally left me breathless.
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