Infested

Very few of us like creepy-crawly things, and I would bet even fewer of us like it when those things have eight legs. Sure, they do a lot of good things, like keeping other bugs in check, and maybe even going radioactive and giving a boy from Queens spider-like powers. So it’s crazy to think that something that can spark such fear doesn’t inspire that many horror movies. Well, good news for those of us who were wanting that—Infested has arrived, and it is only going to add to your spider fears.

In some rundown apartment building in France live Kaleb (Théo Christine) and his sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko), as they try to make ends meet. Their mother recently passed away, and while Kaleb can’t picture leaving because of memories, Manon is looking to sell. For money, Kaleb sells high-end sneakers, which really supports his passion for reptiles, as his room is full of cages of them. It is for that reason that when he’s at a local store picking up a gift, he can’t take his eyes off a certain spider. Now, we viewers have already seen the power of this spider, as some guy who caught it lost a major appendage. Kaleb has no idea, and takes this spider home and makes a nice spot for him in a shoebox, until he can make him a proper home. That spider then finds a way out of that box, and Kaleb thinks he has it trapped in the room, but he is mistaken. Unaware of the danger until he’s hanging out with his friends—Mathys (Jérôme Niel), Lila (Sofia Lesaffre), and Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield)—as Lila encounters a spider in the bathroom. The problem is, it’s not just one, and soon Kaleb and his friends are faced with the task of escaping a building full of spiders before they make a meal of them.

This is survival horror, as writers Florent Bernard and Sébastien Vanicek, the latter also directing, will make you check your shoes and every other dark spot for some waiting eight-legged creature. Bernard and Vanicek don’t just add to your spider paranoia, as they also do a great job of creating tension, especially between the group of friends. However, this is not a full spider assault. No, we are given breathing room in the first act to get to know these characters, so we actually care about what happens to them. Spiders, though, are what we came for, and Infested gives you more spiders than you will ever want to see.

At its best, Infested does a stand-up job of emphasizing the terror of being pursued by hundreds of spiders. When you add in the characters that are easy to root for, there is enough heart to go with the terror, which only adds to the appeal of the film. As for the spiders themselves, they are a combination of real and CGI and will become nightmare fuel once you finish watching. Infested is a pretty terrifying spider movie as it milks every ounce of tension out of its story. This is the spider horror movie we need, again as it taps into the terror we all feel about something so small yet so fast and menacing at the same time.  So be sure to check in your shoes before you take a run at this one.