La Meute (2010)

 French horror movies have been on the top of my list for the last few years. They're rough when it comes to the torture and humiliation. They mostly involve women that remain strong individuals despite the (sick) situation. Think about it, ''Martys'', ''À l'Intérieur'', ''Captifs'' and plenty of others share that theme. So it's not suprising that in ''La Meute'' another woman's getting a kick in her dignity area...how lovely!

 We see 'Charlotte' driving around in her car, listening to a bunch of cd's, having a bite to eat and getting harassed by bikers. Where is she going? Towards the sun. Why? I don't know. Bladiebla she picks up a hitchhicker named 'Max' who's later on driving the car (where did that trust come from?). He takes her to this café where he dissapears in the bathroom. The real problem is that the owner of the café is Max's mom and not much later Charlotte finds herself trapped in a cage, where all French women would end up if it were to be determined by their cinema..

So i'm watching this stuff and i'm getting pretty bored to be honest. *Yawn* another woman in a cage with some other cranked souls around her. Just another sick family up to who knows what... but it decided to take a different route this time, one where reality meets greusome fiction. And that got me excited for a while. So what's the case? They capture their costumers to feed them to her children, and that's where the cool stuff kicks in.

As you can see in the picture below, they're not your average children. They're much worse. They show their hideous faces when the land is lightened by the moon and the blood is dripping on their ground. They have a cool entrance but the suprise is swiftly flowing away as they continue in a predictable pattern. The survivors ultimately end up in a cabin which they barricade the living shit out of, and then they wait for the night to go by. Not without a fight of course.

I think the end has to offer the greatest moments, and even those moments aren't that impressive. It has some nice shots but it's never a exciting experience, neither is the atmosphere dark enough or does it have the right pace. It's hard for me to be strickt to this movie, simply because it's not bad...it just didn't work for me. It also has some cool effects and the acting is just fine...but i'm not feeling satisfied with the end result.

The story has the nice twist it needs to make it feel fresh and suprising, yet it never feels that way. I can't think of any movie that has the same captive/zombie-(like) mix, but i can't make it any better than the way i feel about it. And that's just pure dissapointment. It's nicely produced and all, but i'm not much of a quality freak. It's better to have great content but with shitty cinematography and what not, than to have fine looking outside but no lovable heart. And this movie....has no heart (the kids ate it).

There was a time where i could get excited by hearing the words ''French'' and ''horror'' in the same sentence. Sadly, that's not the case anymore. Wait, i'm not just blaming 'The Pack' for this, but a handful of other movies aswell. The French aren't horror gods, they were lucky to have such amazing directors like 'Pascal Laugier' and Alexandre Aja to boost their popularity. But even they don't cover up the 'The Pack (of wild boars taking a shit)' they simply stroke it, telling it it's going to be just fine..but that was a lie.

Score: 50/100