Short Shudders Part Two

INFESTED ***: France

[original French title: Vermines]

Director and Co-writer: Sébastien Vanicek

Running across an unidentified desert, one man runs uphill in the sand, looking for something under scattered rocks. When turning over rocks that only have sand beneath them, he continues onward. But when he overturns a rock to find a deep hole, he calls for the other men in his party, and one man carries a canister of gas to flood the hole below. After the green-colored gas starts flowing from the crevice, the man waits for the gas to clear and then sticks his face near the hole, looking for something. Suddenly, a spider appears from the corner of the hole and quickly exits, jumping up and attaching itself to the man, who writhes in extreme pain, twisting and turning on the desert sand. He screams as several spiders also exit the hole. Team members use small plastic cases to capture as many spiders as possible. As the infested man continues to thrash about in extreme pain, another man in his party takes a machete to him to put him out of his pain.

Later, a young man named Kaleb frequents a pawn shop owned by a man named Ali, who is selling a spider from the opening sequence. Kaleb collects exotic insects and reptiles and is interested in a long-legged spider he sees. Kaleb and Ali haggle over the price (Ali even accuses him of reselling items from his shop for profit), but they soon agree on one. He immediately returns to his family’s apartment complex, which is in dire need of repair and renovation. The place is partially populated by older teens/twenty-somethings who enjoy playing pranks on elderly janitors and find fun in creating mayhem. Kaleb is the type of man who tries to restore order by forcing a friend who steals bicycles to return them. He’s the peacemaker of the community. He curses but never swears! Kaleb’s apartment is filled with exotic animals he can barely keep alive. He playfully introduces the collection to its newish member, the spider, whom he puts in a wet shoebox with a hole. Once the spider transfer is complete, he yells at his sister, Manon, who had turned off the heat in his room, saying the rare species need both humidity and heat. However, Manon complains about the electrical bills and the cost of repairs. Their mother recently passed away, and the apartment complex's inheritance was divided between Manon and Kaleb. However, Kaleb is passionate only about his animal collection, so Manon now runs the complex alone. Kaleb survives by selling articles he acquires, legally or not, primarily expensive athletic shoes. Manon barely survives by running the apartment complex.

While attending a party for Claudia, a tenant leaving for a better living space, Kaleb’s spider escapes from a shoe box in his apartment. Later, completing a transaction for the pair of sneakers with Kaleb, the buyer, Toumani sees a spider fall out of one shoe, and he instantly crushes it. Surprisingly, a second rolls out on Toumani’s arm, and within seconds, he screams in agony while his dog swallows the first dead spider. Toumani is barely alive, with bite marks over his arm, as he slowly moves to his apartment and drops to the ground. Tenants hear Toumani’s dog barking continuously and break into the apartment to see a horrifying sight. The local police are called and demand everyone remain at the scene, just in case of an outbreak. Toumani is wheeled out in a grungy, dead, one new sneaker on his foot.

Lila is in her apartment trying to attach an air vent grill to ductwork ventilation, but she fails by falling, and spiders unseen already fill up the duct inside. Once recovered, she sees a huge spider and calls for her friend Jordy, who tries to capture the insect alive in a glass jar. He was Kaleb’s best friend and also an animal lover, but they are now estranged due to certain circumstances. Other neighbors intervene. But Jordy manages to knock the spider to the floor. Finally, he thinks he has killed it by smashing the spider under a towel, but when he raises the towel, many smaller spiders scurry away, and several spiders also emerge from the drains. The spiders converge on the bathroom as people exit. The spider story hounds Kaleb and confesses to buying just one, but somehow, they think this incident is related.

Kaleb talks about the spider making a cocoon, and he puts it in a shoebox. Many spiders shimmy about once the shoebox is opened, and the box is immediately taped closed. A policeman whispers, “Start the quarantine!” An Asian female janitor removes a ceiling tile from a dropped ceiling and looks inside, seeing a considerable amount of dust and several spiders. Exiting, she raises two aerosol cans of insecticide, and once the cloud clears, she looks back inside, her head turning around, and one spider flings at her. Kaleb’s friends and sister desire to leave immediately, and Kaleb says he cannot leave without warning the tenants. His friends give him 15 minutes to warn the tenants. Breaking into Claudia's apartment, Kaleb and his friend see her sitting quietly in her chair. Suddenly, her neck creaks as the men approach. Her head is slightly shaking as she seems to be asleep. They approach her as spiders climb down her body, and the men run away. Another man places kitchen glasses over the approaching spiders. Still, another tenant is sleeping in bed as a spider emerges from her mouth. One of the apartment tenants thinks Kaleb has cocaine in his apartment, but he soon finds the taped-shut shoebox and opens it with his knife. A swarm of tiny spiders emerges, causing the man to scream.

Kaleb and the party now try to escape through corridors of cobwebs and spiders. Hundreds of spiders infest the corridor of escape. They twist the electrical mechanism to turn the lights on momentarily, and when the electricity turns off, they reengage the switch and see that many of the spiders are gone. So Manon decides she will keep the lights engaged while the others slowly walk down the corridor. Once they're safe, Manon, being the most agile, will flee down the corridor to escape. The slow walk down the hall is played for maximum suspense, with spiders not moving but hanging everywhere, giving audiences the creeps. And the short walk seems to continue forever. Manon cranks the electrical switch one last time and begins her exit walk. Unfortunately, the lights turn off before she gets out. She flips her cigarette lighter only to see a spider approaching her at close range. But she continues her long journey and finally reaches the others.

Finding the exit door uncommonly locked, poisonous gas descends upon them all (fired by whom?). They are forced to run down an adjacent corridor as spiders descend slowly nearby, almost falling on them again. With all the exits blocked, their only hope is to climb 13 floors to the roof and warn nearby buildings. But now, the long-legged spiders seem to double in size and are the size of dogs. Kaleb fires up a Malakoff cocktail, and its fire illuminates the room before them, but Kaleb sees the spiders scurry toward the group and yells to run. To escape, they must break into an empty apartment, where a police brigade suddenly appears out of nowhere, having been stationed in the parking lot outside, where the exit door was locked. The police view the apartment survivors as potentially infected by this latest breed of spider and view them as enemies. In the fourth quarter, Kaleb and his friends must fight against police and spiders to survive.

This French film has a franchise written all over it. No, the movie doesn’t end by finding another spider nest or one surviving spider, but this film seems like it could have several sequels. The film, as noted, is not dialogue-heavy, and the story serves as a character study of all the friends and relatives living in this dilapidated apartment building. Kaleb, as played by Théo Christine, has the haunting backstory of a best friend lost in time. He has an exciting animal collection and a family dysfunction with his sister. He is by far the standout in this ensemble thriller. Even though we are light on the plot, the screenplay throws in just enough crisis and conflicts, genuine human emotion, to rise above the standard horror disaster film. The claustrophobic environment of the shabby apartment building only adds to the horror. We have no time to waste on romance; these are good and bad friends forced to survive by helping one another. Unfortunately, while the score is resounding and dramatic, it suffers from excessive French Hip-Hop music at the worst times, grating against our nerves. This film requires dubbing; it is quite challenging to read subtitles for such an action-packed horror movie. The cast may be too large to keep everyone straight, but this is an apartment complex. Of all the films here, this film screams mainstream horror, a product made for American acceptance and something to enjoy on a Friday evening. That is not necessarily bad, but it lacks originality and fails to challenge us in new, creative ways. Of course, the special effects spiders, especially seeing them both shrink and grow in size, are the real stars of the show and are incredible. The film does well; it provides a thrilling rollercoaster ride, but it lacks substance to make it truly worth watching.

Vampir ****: Serbian

Director, Writer, Star: Branko Tomovic

A taxi runs across rural fields and suddenly stops, the occupant asking why. The taxi driver speaks Serbian, but the occupant doesn’t speak it. The taxi driver won’t go any further, so they settle on the price. This scene is borrowed from the original Dracula; in those days, the coach would not proceed. The occupant, Arnaut (Branko Tomovic), reluctantly exits and begins walking. A little put out, Vesna (Gorica Regodic) waits by her car, sighing and looking at her nails. Arnaut finally arrives at his destination. Versna greets him with a pronounced smile and says, “Welcome to Serbia!” He becomes the Jonathan Harker character who must work for his rent! They greet each other and kiss: “Let me show you everything,” handing him the keys to the house. “Make yourself at home,” Vesna says accommodatingly, showing him all the house rooms. Arnaut thanks her. Vesna says if he needs anything, ask. “I hope you like it.” He tells Vesna he is from London. “Oh, big city with lots of lights and noise,” Arnaut admits to liking the quiet here. He wants to get away, as criminals are after him. He has witnessed a murder they committed. Besides, his mother came from Serbia, which is not far away. “People here are very traditional and superstitious,” Vesna warns him. Looking out the back of the property lies a fenced-in and neglected graveyard. “At least you won’t have it far,” Vesna says, comforting him. Showing him the cemetery close-up, Vesna tells Arnaut, “Serbian traditions are essential to the villagers around here. They honor the dead, so we need someone responsible to take care.” Showing him another part of the graveyard, Vesna tells Arnaut, “Look, you have to come here at least once or twice a day. The Gypsies are getting worse and worse. The entire village is upset about this. They would come and steal the wine and food that the villagers had left for their loved ones. But now they have started to open the graves, for goodness' sake. “Why would they do that?” Arnaut asks. Vesna never gives a direct answer but tells the new caretaker not to fear them: “They would never harm a person. They are mostly here at dusk and dawn.” Vesna announces she must leave now. Once she drives off, Arnaut takes the time to wander about his new home. Brushing his teeth and spitting out blood, Arnaut is startled when the bathroom door slams unexpectedly. Going outside to explore, Arnaut comes across villagers dancing at an outdoor café—the people at an adjacent table snicker at him. Once the dancing stops, the locals leave, Arnaut sitting alone. Walking home in the Serbian darkness, he soon arrives but hears rustling and sees flashes of light in the graveyard. Arnaut is very isolated and alone, fleeing from his English home and being pursued by criminals. He is a virtual stranger in a strange land, knowing no one and unable to speak the Serbian language. These circumstances further separate him from his new community.

The following day, he explores the graveyard. He carefully examines all the unusual tombstones, the aging photographs, and the strange animal bones. Walking home, he hears a lone dog barking. Stopping in a little store to buy eggs, fresh bread, and meat, he notices that the shopkeeper says nothing. At home, he quickly cooks up two eggs, but they come out black and slimy. The bread on the table is moldy, and the meat inside the refrigerator is infested with maggots. He then discovers a book containing photos of people with their eyes scratched out. Interrupting him, a woman knocks at his window, speaking Serbian, and offers him food. He thanks her as she exclaims, “Eat. Eat!”

Later that night, while sleeping in bed, his bedroom is invaded by a squawking bird that attacks Arnaut. A cane thuds twice as an old woman appears in the bedroom, speaking Serbian. Then Arnaut awakens with the bird and the woman gone. Arnaut, afraid, gasps for breath. Returning to sleep, a strange shadow appears over his body. The following day, while picking up trash in the graveyard, Arnaut's body is shaken by a violent coughing spell. He falls to the ground, heaving up a dead bird and mucus. He is coming under some Serbian curse or spell, but can it be that the always-smiling villagers are causing evil things to happen to Arnaut?

Confused by all the strange behavior occurring, he enters a church. A voice cries out from the corner, “You must be Arnaut. I’m Radosav, but you can call me Rado,” smiling. “I heard all about you.” Rado, a priest, says, “We don’t have many visitors. People don’t attend church as frequently as they used to. Especially in this small part of Serbia.” Arnaut admits to not being a regular churchgoer. “People think they don’t need us as much until they do. The Father asks what Arnaut thinks of their village. He answers, “It makes me feel very isolated, but the people seem friendly.” However, he admits to having had weird dreams since his arrival. The priest asks him what kind of dreams he has. He smiles and says it’s all nonsense; he is not superstitious. Father Rado is a symbol considered old and obsolete in this part of Serbia. Christianity is rendered unnecessary and powerless, the community deserting the church and leaving it virtually vacated.

While walking home, Arnaut is greeted by a woman wearing customary black, motioning for him to accompany her, even though he doesn’t understand her language. She takes him to her house, where her family sits at the dinner table, food being served. Everyone smiles as he apologizes for not speaking their language. But he is the only person eating. Suddenly, Arnaut gets a strange expression on his face and abruptly announces that he must leave, walking home in a state of distress. Vesna is waiting for him at home. Arnaut tells Vesna she could have waited for him outside and not gone into the house. Vesna says she left something in the house that a previous owner had left, and she needs to retrieve it. When asked what it was, Vesna says, “Just a book, nothing of value. But I need to have it back so I can return it.” Arnaut asks Vesna for a ride to the nearest city with cell phone reception, where he needs to make important phone calls. But Vesna says she’s in a hurry and is going in a different direction. “Not today!” Arnaut looks again at the book with the photos and the people’s eyes scratched out. Then, in another section of the book, he finds the same images with no scratch-outs, the people with closed eyes appearing dead. He closes the book and hides it under a sofa cushion.

Falling asleep that night, Arnaut is pulled down from the covers by an unknown person as a woman appears in his bedroom; the woman smiles and strokes his forehead. Then, the woman presses a cane against his throat, choking him. He groans. Blood pours from her mouth into his throat. She takes the cane from his face. Arnaut’s lower mouth is covered in blood, and she licks blood off the cane. Arnaut awakens gasping, but his face is clean of blood. Then Arnaut, returning from his morning walk, collapses, the weird food the woman gave him at his side. Next, he finds himself gasping for air and crawling his way out of a narrow grave. Lying on his back, Arnaut breathes heavily and coughs, trying to stand erect. Dried blood stains his mouth and cheeks.

He packs his bag and leaves his home, walking down the road. No matter which way he goes, he always arrives at the same village sign, as if trapped in a Serbian city. Arnaut breaks down sobbing. Next, we find Arnaut being carried by four men who return him home. The woman with the cane touches it to his head. He finds himself tied to the bed, surrounded by smiling women. They take innards from his bleeding chest and gag his mouth, and they build a wooden spit over his bed as he lies screaming. The smiling woman softly sings to him. Near morning, he is alone in bed, breathing rapidly, his eyes wide open, staring and slowly rising. Walking outside, Arnaut finds a woman with a burlap hood over her head and a bloody chest tied to the fence. “Who did this to you?” Arnaut asks. The woman can only pull at her ties and whimper as if in pain. He leaves her tied and screaming. “I’m so sorry.” Back at home, Arnaut paces and still hears the woman screaming. Then the screaming fades off and stops, but her breathing is heavy. Then the violent screaming starts again as Arnaut investigates, now untying her. Unsteady, she runs off in fear.

Later in the day, Father Radosav makes a house call to Arnaut. He serves the priest a rakis, which the Father says the villagers make themselves. Father Rado tells his host, “Centuries ago, they called it the water of life. But we all know other liquids are more important for life (as Bram Stoker once wrote, “The blood is the life”). When the priest asks if he is settling in well, he still mentions the weird dreams he had mentioned before. “Well, I’m not so sure there are dreams.” Then, someone knocks at the door, and Father Rado no longer sits inside the house. Instead, Father Rado walks into the home as though he has just arrived, asking if now is a good time to bless his home. Arnaut asks if he needs to do anything, and Father Rado says to watch. Rado speaks some foreign language, burns incense, and blesses each entranceway with his hand. Then, he lays the incense down and begins to pray. He smiles and announces, That’s it. Arnaut offers Rado a drink, but all he asks for is water. Arnaut thanks Rado for coming and doing this.

Arnaut shows him the book with the photographs. “Have you seen them before? ... Why do you think their eyes have been scratched?” Looking very concerned, Rado says, “I don’t know who did this.” Then he shows him the other photographs. “Vesna was in the house, and I know she was looking for these. At first, I thought they were all sleeping ...” but they both agreed that they were dead. Rado reaches for a photo, “This one, he was here before you.” Arnaut says Vesna did not tell him of a previous caretaker. “Not just him, but there were many here before you,” the priest answers. Then he says the villages took these photos. Rado adds, “They believed they could capture the soul the moment someone passes away ... But they mean well. They care deeply about their disease. Arnaud concludes that the eyes are scratched out because it’s impossible to tell if they’re sleeping or dead. “It almost looks like a normal photograph.” Then Rado intervenes, “No, I’m afraid there is another explanation ... they’re not dead.” (Does he mean Undead?) Arnaut admits to the Father that he tried to run away. “But I don’t like all the stuff that happened to me. All that stuff that’s happening here.” Rado bluntly adds, “You can’t get away. I can see you are a good man. But it is too late.” Rado puts a crucifix in the candle fire and presses it against Arnaut’s forehead, praying all the while. But Arnaut retaliates, hitting him several times in the head with the metal incense container, killing him. We never find out if Rado was helping him or was in on the conspiracy.

Arnaut washes his face, dropping the priest’s body in his church. “I’m sorry!” Arnaut is followed home, first by one man, then by two. Finally arriving at the graveyard, he sees at least eight people staring at him. He screams out, “What do you want from me?” He retreats to his home as the crowd slowly calls him by name. As he is dragged toward the people now inside his house, he is bitten in the neck as he moans. Blood covers his neck. Another man lifts him off the floor with one hand before dropping him to the floor, writhing in pain. Falling unconscious, someone smears a bloody hand over his face. Then he appears with the Serbian family, who offered him dinner earlier. Tears fall from his eyes as a long-nailed pair of hands surrounds his neck. Then we are back inside his home, his body still as the night. Some of the people surrounding him are loudly crying. Arnaut’s body lies in a casket; he’s now cleaned up. Then, once more, we return to his bloody body lying motionless on the floor.

As morning approaches, his body abruptly sits up, a blank expression on his face. A man bound and gagged tries to escape Arnaut. But Arnaut stands above the fidgeting man and bites his neck. Arnaut raises his head, breathing as though exhausted, blood smeared on his face. The old lady, still smiling, helps him, and he kisses her. Arnaut takes his bag of belongings outside and burns them as a Serbian sings sadly in the background. The people stare at him from the graveyard as the fire rises higher. Arnaut walks into the cemetery as people disperse. Cut to credits.

Transcending all language barriers, he communicates by his actions, finally submitting to existence as a feral vampire (he’s no European gentleman!). Now, he belongs to a community that will welcome and protect him. He again has a family. He is no longer the Other.

This film is the opposite of a movie like Infested, a mainstream commercial product. Vampir is very European in style, graphically violent, and very slow-moving, offering more mood than plot. Arnaut’s journey from a dreaded stranger to a community-accepted vampire is not a journey everyone will want to take. Still, for those who do, it remains a mesmerizing one of imaginable tangents tied nicely together. It is a vampire film like no other! Recommended if you dare.

PART TWO

MANON MAKES A DASH TOWARD THE EXIT, BUT THE LIGHT TURNS OFF AND A SPIDER APPROACHES.