GFF 2012: Livid

Film Review by jamie@theskinny.co.uk | 24 Feb 2012
Film title: Livid
Director: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
Starring: Chloe Coulloud, Felix Moati, Jeremy Kapone, Catherine Jacob
Release date: TBC
Certificate: TBC

Bustillo and Maury’s follow-up to their delightfully twisted Inside sticks to a similar recipe of awkward laughs and chills, but with less inspired results. Lucie (Chloe Coulloud) is on the first day of her new job as a carer, under the authority of creepy Madame Wilson (Catherine Jacob). While visiting a bedridden, decaying client in the sort of house to immediately set alarm bells ringing, Wilson reveals their charge has a mound of treasure secreted about her home; Lucie, after some gentle persuasion from her fella (Moati), resolves to rob the old dear. Trouble in store? You betcha.

Where Inside managed to couple its ridiculousness with a relentless assault of viscera and distress, providing an uneasy, queasy whole, Livid dials down the splatter and favours a more measured pace, allowing enough respite to find things plain daft. Gleefully referential and occasionally frightening, with a surprising and oddly touching finale, this still has to go down as a misstep from two promising genre filmmakers. [Chris Fyvie]

Livid screened as part of Glasgow Film Festival 2012.