Director Robin Aubert’s zombie apocalypse Ravenous generates more than enough interest for you to watch the film till the end than those many others in the sub-genre. This horror film (in French language – Les Affamés) banks heavily on the plot, environment and some great performance.
The film has won the Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian Film, and certainly so deserving for a film that is scary, at the same time philosophical. Writer-director Aubert never really relies on the dialogues rather created a claustrophobic atmosphere – even in the dense forest while asking us to take heed of the noise by the zombies.
Ravenous begins with only few survivors in a countryside near Quebec, where almost everyone has turned into flesh-eating things. Those few who have survived are either hiding in some distant cottage with limited resources or marching on their way through forest to find out safe place for survival.
As the film progresses, survivors unknown to each other join hands to keep each other safe from the bites of those walking-dead creatures. Yes, certainly they are now creatures looking for human flesh and blood. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is that each character with different background comes close to each other and develops that trust essential to survive in such an unnerving surrounding.
The film is also very tightly written, with almost no melodrama and hysterical interaction between characters, which eventually helps in keeping all the focus on the action. The cinematography is also very good; especially those shots in the forest, particularly the shots in the initial few minutes – where a lady was standing with few kids deep inside in the forest – were very spooky.
While Ravenous (Les Affamés) scores well in storytelling, cinematography, and intelligent use of gory scenes with sound and camera work, I kind of feel that the film lacks a little more haunting sound design or any background score. Well, that might be intentional from the director, but the film has less dialogues and some more sound effect could have been great to break the silence.
Ravenous is indeed a great watch, even when I try to avoid all kinds of zombie movies because of similar kind, predictable plots – laced with excessive gore and stupid rituals.
Check out Ravenous (Les Affamés) on Netflix. Here is the trailer to give you an impression on what’s there in the film.
Director: Robin Aubert
Writer: Robin Aubert
Stars: Marc-André Grondin, Monia Chokri, Charlotte St-Martin