Review: Among The Living 2014

“Among The Living” is a french language horror film, it definitely wasn’t perfect, but I certainly still enjoyed it. It somehow feels both original and derivative at the same time, it’s as if it takes many of the same ingredients as other horror films, adds a few new ones (gotta say, I think “death by foot” is something I’ve never seen before!), and the result really is “something else”… I feel I must mention that this film is extremely intense, it does center around the killing of young boys and while we are not shown everything, many scenes are still not easy to watch. The ending doesn’t quite make sense (but that’s nothing new for the genre)..yet, overall I found this one creepy and effective, and I felt that, by the end, it also delivered well enough in the ‘gore department’.
After a rather disturbing, opening scene (featuring the always amazing Beatrice Dalle!) “Among The Living” focuses mostly on three 12 year old boys. They decide to skip the last day of school (and their detention) and, after a bit of ‘juvenile delinquency’ (resulting in a future loss of credibility), the boys end up witnessing, and subsequently following, a masked man, carrying a bound woman into an underground building. The masked man is Klarence, he is deformed, very pale and completely hairless… he lives with his father and if they intend for their lives there to remain a secret, and they do, there is only one option, Klarence must kill the boys, one by one, before anyone begins to believe their story.
This movie was very good, at times, even great, the violence/gore was plentiful without being too overly gratuitous and I definitely enjoyed seeing Beatrice Dalle in the opening sequence! I’d recommend this one, but only to serious horror fans.