Les Fauves (Wildcats)

Difficult, where to situate this film, if anywhere in particular, or nowhere notwithstanding.

If it's supposed to inspire horror, it's far too tame and light, coming across as more of a creepy drama than anything truly frightening.

It is more of a kids film though, a teenage film, an adolescent film, a film basking in youthful articulation, so perhaps the short scenes that never really lead anywhere were still long enough to develop tension for younger audiences, searching for something more than a campy slasher, looking for melancholic distress.

Les Fauves (Wildcats) does take place in a campground and many of its characters are therefore camping, and it is somewhat campy I suppose, insofar as it's hesitant and awkwardly disposed, and perhaps the distraught psycho has lost its appeal in recent years, and horror directors are searching for more thoughtful borderline visceral illustrations, as they consider the globalized world, and step into the harrowing cascade.

Could be, although if horror is shifting paradigmatically, Les Mauves may not be seminally equipped, but it is chock full o' Summer, and there are without question much much worse things.

For presenting horror without a vicious monster and sincerely attempting to generate chills that are more cerebral, Les Fauves should be commended, even if it falls far short of the haunting Midsommar.

But I'm wondering if it's not supposed to be taken that seriously, as a horror film, or if it's more of a horror-comedy, to be accurate, or definitively precise.

The opening scene is certainly comedic and (forgive me if I'm wrong here) couldn't have possibly been intended to disorient, in fact after viewing it I thought I was in for a romp or at least something just a wee bit delirious.

The pool-filled-with-dead-animals scene functions in a similar way, and is also kind of campy, if not disreputable.

There's a long sad monologue in the end as well that's presented as if it's genuinely fond, but it's so histrionic and overwrought that I thought Vincent Mariette was trying to trick us into taking it seriously, and that if you were indeed irrefutably impacted, you had indeed unwittingly bought it.

Perhaps it's meant to be rationally analyzed, and I plain and simply didn't get it, but it seemed like something was out of place throughout, something that made me think I was immersed in shenanigans.

There are some really cool cave scenes that are kind of creepy and otherworldly, but they unreel so quickly that I never thought there was anything strange taking place, or that anything was in fact out of order.

Seemed more like we were just checking out some cool caves that happened to be located within a not so far fetched plot.

It's cool to see more brainy horror flicks but sometimes they're simply ridiculous.

At least Les Fauves promotes confusion.

With some cool characters.

Kind of sleazy.