This Timeless French Horror Thriller Is A Reminder Of How Innovative Indie Horror Can Be

It’s hard to say where the hidden cuts are in MadS,
David Moreau’s latest horror movie that unfolds in one take. The film wastes no time getting into the meat of the action and does more with its low budget than some of the biggest blockbuster horrors have achieved in the past few years. Both an outbreak flick and a fast zombie movie, MadS thrives with its tight and bloody runtime, at just under 90 minutes. Any longer or shorter, and MadS might drag or miss its sweet spot, but the film is too well crafted to make that mistake.

We meet the protagonist, Romain (Milton Riche), and we aren’t immediately inclined to like him. Clearly privileged and unconcerned with the future, Romain has his perfect night of partying and debauchery thrown off course when a bandaged and bloody young woman climbs into his car and seems to kill herself in front of him. However, this soon becomes the last of his worries, as the narrative turns into a contagion plot, with Romain as patient zero and his unfortunate companions soon following him into a world of madness and grotesque transformation.

MadS Is Short On Gore But Filled With Tension, Letting Us Imagine The Worst

Moreau Doesn’t Need To Show Us The Horrors For Us To Understand Them

However, there aren’t many body horror moments or even particularly horrifying imagery. By scaling back on the gore, MadS lets us imagine most of the violence, an effective tool when the budget’s a constraint, and the movie thrives on a fear of the unknown. Additionally, the immediate shift in tone and atmosphere when a graphic image explodes onto the screen is almost a relief, as we get a breather from wondering what’s hidden behind the next corner. Spending every moment in real-time with the characters pushes us and the actors to their limits.

The small and relatively unknown cast is perfect for MadS, a streamlined project with no huge stars or flashy gimmicks to give the film its punch, just a relentlessly propulsive story. Though crafting a film to seem like one continuous shot could be characterized as a marketing ploy or cheap trick, this couldn’t be further from the case here. It’s undeniably a stylistic choice on the part of Moreau, as natural an extension of the story as the strange illness in the movie or the carefully designed sets and visual language.

The first act is the strongest part of the movie, since Romain is who we begin the journey with, making him the most compelling of the three main characters. At the end of Romain’s section, we’re finally let in on the game and come to understand how the rest of the narrative will unfold. Once we know the conceit, the story shifts into apocalyptic, thriller-survival territory, but Moreau handles this just as deftly. The director knows how to foster tension, lingering on shots and never rushing the pacing of key scenes, letting us stew just enough.

By the end of the movie, we have enough information and context to draw our own conclusions about how the outbreak began and who the real villains of the story are. The masked, faceless assailants slowly transform from monsters to real people who are as empathetic as the protagonists. Its sparsely dispensed exposition is a testament to how well MadS keeps us engaged with only hints at the larger world of the story. We know who Romain is, how his wealth influences his behavior, and his relationship with Anaïs and Julia, the film’s other two prominent characters.

MadS Provides A Universal Story, Leaving Plenty Of Room For Interpretation

There Are Many Ways To Understand The Story, Giving The Narrative An All-Encompassing Tone

MadS could be analyzed as a critique of wealth and power, a metaphor for the hedonism of youth, or an allegory for how quickly a life can be upended by the wrong chance encounter. However, like every great horror movie, it’s in conversation with whatever we project onto it. There are elements of many critiques and larger discussions about society, and there are few interpretations of the story that could be considered far off. In time, this will provide MadS with a timelessness that is tricky to achieve but brilliant when done right.

Crucially, MadS is fun and says a lot without asking too much. It isn’t a horror movie with a cliffhanger ending, as there’s an open-ended conclusion, but it’s not difficult to imagine what happens next. It doesn’t belabor the story with Easter eggs for sequels and franchise potentiality, a quality too many modern horror films share. One shot and many twisting story moments later, MadS shows what can be done with a little imagination and faith in the audience.

MadS will be available to stream on Shudder on October 18. The film is 86 minutes long and not yet rated.

8/10

After taking a new drug, a young man named Romain picks up a mysterious, injured woman who begins behaving erratically and violently in his car. As his night spirals into chaos, Romain struggles to distinguish between the effects of the drug and the terrifying reality unfolding around him​.

Pros

• MadS lets us imagine the worst while keeping things tense
• The horror movie is open to interpretation
• MadS has great writing, characters, and a tight story