'Infested' Spins a Web of Pure, Arachnophobic Terror [Review]

​Arachnophobes beware, because director Sébastien Vaniček’s feature debut, Infested (aka Vermines), is the stuff of your eight-legged nightmares. Despite under-developed characters and themes that don’t hit quite as hard as intended, the filmmaker crafts an inescapable web of spider-centric terror up there with the very best of the sub-genre.
 
Kaleb (Théo Christine) lives with his sister, Manon (Lisa Nyarko) in the apartment they grew up in. Situated in a decrepit building, she wants out, while he clings onto the memories of their deceased mother. A re-seller of sneakers by day and bug collector by night, he comes across a rare spider while picking up a pair of shoes from a pawn shop. Careless with his find, Kaleb leaves the new pet in a shoebox while taking care of some business, only to return home and find it has escaped. But this is no ordinary spider. Within hours, the deadly arachnid has reproduced, sending the building into a police-enforced quarantine and trapping the residents with the eight-legged brood. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the spiders are getting bigger…much bigger. 
 
Since 1990, Frank Marshall’s Arachnophobia has sat at the top of the pile of spider-themed horror. While I can’t say Infested dethrones that eight-legged king, the terror of this French horror film is equally effective. That’s in large part because, whenever possible, Vaniček uses real spiders while incorporating many of the worst fears of arachnophobes. Spiders hide in shoes. They crawl out of drains. They scurry up broomsticks, turning what was meant to be a weapon into a quick ramp to the user’s arms. All of which would be scream-worthy on its own, but by using living, breathing spiders, the fear hits that much harder. It makes you believe the stark horror of Kaleb and friends as the eight-legged freaks descend upon them in waves. Like Kingdom of the Spiders, the cast’s on-screen terror likely comes easier when the creatures they’re interacting with are right there with them. Blended with CG and practical effects, you can rarely be too sure which arachnids are real and which aren’t. I squirmed. I shuddered. I squealed. I wanted to burn this movie with fire, and I mean that as a compliment. Infested is Arachnophobia without the camp, resulting in one of the scariest spider films to date.

Vaniček was hired to do the next Evil Dead film based off his work on Infested, and it’s easy to understand why. From a directing standpoint, this is an impressive feature debut that puts on full display the filmmaker’s adept instincts at creating tense thrills and skin-crawling chills. Aided by Xavier Caux and Douglas Cavanna’s score that dances up and down the spine like tiny spider legs, Vaniček tosses viewers into a claustrophobic setting that the filmmaker squeezes every last ounce of horror out of like a tarantula sucking the life from its prey. Off-kilter shots and tight spaces constrict the viewer’s nerves, allowing Vaniček to spin a web of dread. What starts off as a falling apart but simple apartment building transforms into the spider nest from hell. It isn’t just spiders crawling up drains and characters screaming as they swat brooms at them, a typical Friday night in some households. The longer the film goes, the more infested the place becomes, until every room, every hall, is covered in webbing. I found myself muttering “no, no, no” often as characters traversed through spaces where I would rather drop dead than move another inch. Vaniček proves himself as a director that understands how to execute extreme intensity. One scene that takes place in a stairwell moves with such energetic anxiety I could hardly breathe. That being said, Infested does leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the body horror and kills, much of it either happening off-screen or with little impact.  
 
Not all eight-legs function in Infested. Namely, the characters. While Christine and the rest of the cast all do a fine job with what they’re given, the film doesn’t pay enough attention to them to get beyond a surface-level presentation of who they are. Kaleb misses his mom and is afraid to move on from the life they had. Manon has found herself constantly repairing the apartment, a clear-cut metaphor for her effort to rebuild her life. Others such as Kaleb’s old friends, Mathys (Jérôme Niel) and Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) are introduced without giving the audience the necessary understanding of their relationship to the siblings. No one stands out, lessening the blow of deaths along the way. Nor does the theme intended by Vaniček stick the way the filmmaker desires. It’s hard to miss he and co-writer Florent Bernard’s commentary on how the under-privileged are forced to live in terrible conditions, in this case trapped inside with venomous spiders like the insects that wealthier parts of society treat them as. Harsh yellow lighting and how the spiders kill also speak to the way youth in these situations are victimized by drugs, but Infested has trouble balancing these themes against its arachnid villains, resulting in a plot that stumbles as it attempts to force the focus on the system as the true monster.
 
Cobwebs aside, Infested gives viewers all the spider horror they can handle. Bland characters and underwhelming death scenes undercut the emotional impact, but Vaniček’s film makes up for that with plenty of creepy, crawly sequences that solidify this as one of the most terrifying spider films there is. If it doesn’t make your skin crawl, you’re already dead.

Infested scurries onto Shudder April 26th. 

By Matt Konopka