Antiviral (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Brandon Cronenberg
	Actors: Caleb Landry Jones (Byzantium), Lisa Berry, Sarah Gadon
	Country: CDN
	Genre: Thriller, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 05.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: In the near future, a specialised clinic injects to celebrities' fans deseases that have been contracted by their idols.
Review: For his first feature film, the son of David Cronenberg (The Fy, eXistenZ, Scanners) displays an obvious family link. They both like to depict the perversion of our society and the people living in it. I found brilliant the concept of the movie, and even if the action is set in the near future I had no difficulty believing in it, when I see how people are crazy about celebrities nowadays. You don't even need to be talented at singing or acting anymore to become famous, but just to be the heart of some scandals. Celebrities in Antiviral are also shown to be no more that part of an impersonnal money-making machine. The TV news throughout the movie also reflect our world by displaying without remorse all details about celebrities lifes, from their panties showing to their latest anal infection, with the help of close-ups. In the movie some specialized butchers also sell steaks cultivated from muscle tissue of the celebrities! The main actor Caleb Landry Jones is very well chosen for the role. His size, weight and fair complexion already makes him look sick so he doesn't have to add much to play a character handling diseases on a daily basis. Ten minutes could have been skipped towards the end of the movie, but otherwise its structure keeps you alert. One of the critics I have heard about the movie is that it is too "clinical", but I had no problem with the white walls at the clinic or the main character's appartment, it is a specific style and anyway is balanced by some other more colorful sets. I have also read the Brandon Cronenberg does just like dad, in less good. One big difference I see between the two is that when the father was kind of obsessed with flesh and dirty putrefaction, the son's imagery in Antiviral revolves around clean, sharp red blood contrasting with the white surrondings. In any case, the future films from Cronenberg Junior will tell if he has the talent to expand his universe like his father could.
Rating: 7 /10

Frankenstein's Army (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Richard Raaphorst
	Actors: Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse, Robert Gwilym
	Country: NL
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 05.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: During WWII, an isolated group of russian soldiers receives a distress signal and heads towards it, while fearing it could be a trap from the Nazis.
Review: A crazy concept for this movie fitting well in the current revival wave of crazy Nazi science movies, but I have read that the original idea by the director is ten years old, i.e. long before Dead Snow and Iron Sky. The choice for a documentary style (hand-held camera manipulated by one of the soldiers) is hard to believe but definitely helps the viewer feeling more threatened. The russian soldiers all speak English which is confusing. I guess it was done so in view of a worldwide distribution. The movie slowly progresses until we reach the main interest of it: the encounter with an army of undead bio-mechanical Nazi soldiers lead by a crazy scientist. This main attraction gives the impression to have been very weel thought and designed: the soldiers are all unique a scary: one has huge scissors insetad of hands, one's face is a bear-trap, one has spider-like leg extensions and a driller for mouth, and my favorite has a plane propeller instead of the upper body! Apart from this nice bestiary, the movie can be boring at times and the action scenes confused, too shaky and too loud (people screaming and shouting all the time). It could have gained in being more extreme like The Human Centipede or Urban Explorers, but it was nice anyway.
Rating: 5 /10

Modus Anomali (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Joko Anwar
	Actors: Rio Dewanto, Hannah Al Rashid, Aridh Tritama
	Country: RI
	Genre: Thriller, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 05.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A man wakes up in the forest with a memory loss. He finds a deserted house, a dead woman in it and a video of the crime.
Review: I wanted to see this movie because I read it contained incredible twists (plural). It turns out there is only one twist, revealing in the last twenty minutes the meaning of the whole film. This final twist is indeed original and quite good (I will not reveal it here) but it cannot justify the first hour of extremely slow action and lack of ideas. During this hour the man keeps walking/running in the forest, escaping a mysterious butcher, finding deserted houses that don't even contain pieces of the puzzle, digging in the ground and especially: hiding behind a rock. This nonsense was not missed by the public of the BIFFF who spent a good time enterning the audience when the movie couldn't. Another nonsense: all characters are obviously from asia but all dialogs are in english, pronounced with a horrible accent. All of this is a pity because the visual quality (and sometimes the music) are quite good for a production from Indonesia. Maybe the story would have a made a nice short film.
Rating: 3 /10

Byzantium (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Neil Jordan (Interview with a Vampire, Ondine)
	Actors: Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Violet & Daisy), Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, The Dissapearance of Alice Creed, Clash of the Titans), Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting, Mindhunters)
	Country: GB, USA, IRL
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 02.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: We follow the modern live of two vampire women in Irland, in parallel with their 200 years old story.
Review: I don't fully remember Interview with a Vampire from the same director, but I think that the historial (flashback) part of Byzantium has the same atmosphere. The remote island on which you find the original vampire has a nice gothic atmosphere to it. Byzantium is the name of a hotel in which the oldest of the women will establish a prostitution business, activity that she has always been linked with. I found Gemma Arterton sexy as usual, and Saoirse Ronan annoying as usual. The story of how the women turned vampire is interesting even if not quite original, and in the end their past and lies with catch up with them. I may be tired of zombies / infected movies, but I remember beeing pleased with the recent vampire movies I have seen: Suck, Daybreakers, Kiss of the Damned or this Byzantium.
Rating: 6 /10

Key of Life (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Kenji Uchida
	Actors: Masato Sakai, Teruyuki Kagawa, Ryôko Hirosue
	Country: J
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 04.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A loser exchanges life with a professionnal killer after this one loses memory.
Review: This classical theme of life exchange is nicely revisited in this Japanese light comedy. The main theme of the movie is about whether our character is forged by what we own and how we succeed, and the answer is no: the loser is always a loser even with money, and the now poor killer is aways meticulous and hard-working. In the middle of the two main characters, a woman is trying to find a husband which also creates some funny scenes. The movie is filled with such comedy moments that only Japan can offer. Unfortunately I found that the rythm of the movie is (as very often in Asian movies) too slow, and it would have been more efficient to shorten the movie from two to one and a half hour.
Rating: 5 /10

Spiders 3D (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Tibor Takács (Rats, Mega Snake)
	Actors: Patrick Muldoon (Starship Troopers), William Hope (Aliens, Scherlock Holmes), Shelly Varod, Brian Hankey
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 04.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A piece of a satellite belonging to the former USSR crashed in the New-York subway. Guess what it contains...
Review: I was not expecting a great movie from this Nu Image production. They are already responsible for movies like Shark Attack or The Expendables. And this Spiders 3D doesn't provide more than I expected: big spiders fought by the military, some conspiracy, a father trying to save his family, and a grand finale with a building-sized spider. But there are not really good ideas, the movie is pretty flat and the spiders are not too scary, although the CGIs and the 3D are quite OK. I would rather watch again the ten-years old Eight Legged Freaks (Arac Attack in Europe).
Rating: 3 /10

Maniac (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Franck Khalfoun
	Actors: Elijah Wood (The Faculty, The Lord of the Rings 1-3), America Olivo, Nora Arnezeder
	Country: F, USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 03.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A serial killer focuses on mannequin.
Review: Just the intro is giving the right tone. One girl, one death and the title Maniac. The story is full of suspense as the exhibition in the gallery is organised and the relationship with Anna, interested in mannequins, evolves. The scenery gives us the impression to be the serial killer, via the direction of the camera, the viewing of the hands and the killing knife as in some video games. The image is not even shaking like in many movies trying to give this effect. This view puts the viewer in the unconfortable position of the stalker and killer. The few special effects are well used, for instance to see the knife and its reflections at any time, what is quite new in a thriller.  For Elijah Wood, it is a good opportunity to come out of the slot of Frodon, in order not to make only Lord of the Ring -type of movie. His role is not much. The role of Arnezeder is more demanding and she managed it.  This movie is NOT recommended to the many women fearing to be stalked, except if viewed with very good friends that bring you home.
Rating: 7 /10

The Complex (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Hideo Nakata (Ring 0-1-2, Dark Water)
	Actors: Atsuko Maeda, Hiroki Narimiya, Masanobu Katsumura
	Country: J
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 03.04.2012, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A teenage girl moves into a new flat with her family. Some strange events seem to happen in the neighbourg appartment.
Review: The movie is loosely inspired by the swedish Let the Right One In, which has already been remade in the USA. Well, actually it takes only a few elements of it, and adds some themes usually dear to Hideo Nakata. But the director of Ring is not what he used to be, and it seems to me that he is in some way annoyed of not having created and directed The 6th Sense. He tries to bring new ideas to the genre of Japanese ghosts movies but is not successful. Anyway, the worst in this movie is its veeeery sloooow rythm. The main character walks for minutes on the screen, moves veeeery slowly, never answers a question... It is absolutely annoying. Hopefully the verbose public of the BIFFF was here to keep us awake!
Rating: 0 /10

Crawlspace (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Justin Dix
	Actors: Nicholas Bell, Ngaire Dawn Fair, John Brumpton
	Country: AUS
	Genre: SF, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 03.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: In the australian desert, a group of military is sent to a secret base to contain the escape of prisoners subject to experiments.
Review: I usually don't like this kind of comparison but the movie was sold as a cross-over between Alien and Scanners, and it is very true that it takes elements from both movie. But for a small australian B-movie, it makes an interesting mix of both and produces a nice SF story. It may not be very original but it is pleasant nonetheless to follow the soldiers into narrower and narrower corridors, trying to escape an unknown danger. The movie offers some nice scenaristic surprises but doesn't revolve around a final twist to justify its story.
Rating: 6 /10

The 25th Reich (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Stephen Amis
	Actors: Jim Knobeloch, Serge De Nardo, Angelo Salamanca
	Country: AUS
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 03.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A group of American soldiers are fighting in 1943 against Nazis by time travelling.
Review: The story is not so bad and the characters are very typical and controversial for 1943: Jews, gay actor, a republican fachist, Italian migrant. This gives an idea of the "melting pot". It is in fact only a tour of hiking in Australian mountains with added cheap CGIs, but the movie is not boring. Some scenes do not fit in the story, but nobody cares. Unlike the BIFFF organistors comment, this movie has nothing to do with Iron Sky, that is involving Nazis from the Moon. Here we have the Nazis from the future and the past, calling already for a second part.
Rating: 3 /10