The film's big secret? It has no on-screen violence.
For all its intense terror, Them is more Psycho than Hostel. Moreau and Palud have ingeniously crafted a truly disturbing, suspenseful film while resorting to nary an arterial spray.
The opening scene sets the tone: A woman and her daughter, who crash their car on a small backwoods road outside Bucharest, Romania, are butchered by a shadowy figure. We're offered no explanations about the assault or the killer.
Nearby, Frenchwoman Clmentine (Olivia Bonamy) arrives home from her teaching job to join her lover Lucas (Michal Cohen) at the expat couple's aging mansion just outside Bucharest. Soon after turning in for the night, the lovers are rattled when they hear their car being stolen.
It's only a routine affair, the police say. But just as things seem to quiet down (it's almost too quiet) the couple receive a series of prank phone calls. They are later serenaded by really creepy noises and weird animal calls outside and eventually inside their house.
The inexplicable attack (by whom? A super-slasher dude? A horde of bloodthirsty zombies? A chainsaw-wielding family?), during which the French couple are treated as if they were lab rats in a maze, geometrically increases in intensity right up to the closing credits.
Moreau and Palud's peculiar genius lies in the way they use some pretty wild camerawork and superb editing to suck the audience into the couple's increasing panic. The filmmakers intensify the fear and disorientation by providing no explanation, no background stories about the characters, not even much dialogue. Their minimalist approach makes this an efficient, but also elegant, experiment in pure filmmaking.
Contact staff writer Tirdad Derakhshani at 215-854-2736 or tirdad@phillynews.com.
Them *** 1/2 (out of four stars)
Written and directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud. With Olivia Bonamy, Michal Cohen and Maria Roman.
Running time: 1 hour, 17 mins.
Parent's guide: R (extreme terror, violence, adult situations)
Playing at: The Bridge at 10 p.m. Saturday, at Ritz Five at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, and at County Theater at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
