Ils (2006)

THEM

Quick and easy plot, a young couple lives out in the county. One night the while the husband sleeps and the wife is up grading papers, the phone rings and only hears a strange noise on the line, then even later they are woken by strange music thumping outside and someone stealing their car, then the power goes out….then THEY ARE IN THE HOUSE!

And it only gets worse. By worse I mean scarier, this movie is good. Good and fucking freaky. It is a great example of being able to take age-old stories that are dusty as fuck and making them totally relevant and scary.

There isn’t too much of a plot, but fuck it, it works anyways. Good camera work, you follow our main characters, only knowing what they know and never gives away too much of who the villans are and why they are terrorizing them until it’s too fucking late. Very smart, low on gore/high on scares. At times I wanted it to be a bit scarier, but it’s a minor quibble: this is head and shoulders above most films in the genre.

Good shit, the French strike again (you are forgiven for the last 10mins of Haute Tension).

Remade (sorta)  as “The Strangers” in the US w/Liv Tyler, which is scary, but I’d recommend you watch this instead.  (No review of the Strangers on this blog, cuz I didn’t finish watching it).

Wait! this just in! “The Strangers” script was written before “Ils” was made, so they are just similar in the “creepy home invasion” subgenre.