Livid

I am not a fan of bad horror films (horror for horror's sake ... blood and guts all over the place) but I do like scary films that have a story. French film Livid is almost a great scary film.

The small cast are all good; particularly Chloé Coulloud as Lucie and Catherine Jacob as the nurse Wilson. The boys Ben and William start off good, but descend into stereotypes quite quickly... not the actors faults, just one of the few lapses the film has into the pitfalls of this genre; and yes, there is a scene where someone walks backwards towards something bad without looking!

It is a dark film; both metaphorically and in terms of lighting. That really works well for me. I prefer to imagine someone getting mangled rather than actually seeing it in all its gory detail. For me it is scarier to not see the detail... maybe my mind is darker than anything that can be shown on screen?

The story is a bit puzzling. The viewer is led along a certain path concerning Jessel and what happened to her family. At the end there seems to be a sort of twist; but I didn't quite get it. I think I know what happened... but I have no idea why it happened. Since this is quite a short film (93 minutes) maybe the director could have put more into the ending. But I am nitpicking a bit.

Good suspense. Well shot. Scary without over-indulgent gore.