Infested – Shudder Review (3/5)

INFESTED on Shudder is a French Spider horror movie (org. title: Vermines). The Spider Horror is awesome, but the story isn’t great. Still, it definitely made my skin crawl throughout. Read our full Infested movie review here!

INFESTED is a new Shudder Spider horror movie from France (org. title: Vermines). If you can live with the main character being a bit of an idiot – but with a good heart – you’ll enjoy this. Or, you know, you will if you like the feeling of spiders crawling all over you creepily.

Unlike Sting, the spiders in this spider horror movie aren’t alien. And yet, they aren’t entirely natural or real either. They grow larger with each generation and the generations come fast. Extremely fast. It is, after all, an infestation we’re witnessing. Oh yeah, and they are venomous. As in deadly!

Continue reading our Infested movie review below. Find it on Shudder from April 26, 2024.

This is how you do spider horror!

I am not a fan of spiders, but I also don’t want to kill them. In that sense, Infested was perfect for me. The main character, Kaleb, loves all the kinds of animals that make most people’s skin crawl. It goes to reason that he doesn’t want to just kill spiders whenever he sees one.

Obviously, this can’t last and the way the spiders in this spider horror movie evolve in some sort of hyperdrive, the humans must fight back and try to kill them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Infested (org. French title: Vermines) begins when the almost 30-year-old Kaleb (Théo Christine) is coming ever closer to realizing he is no longer a kid. Also, he is extremely lonely despite living with his sister. The two are basically estranged while sharing a home.

They live in their late mother’s apartment. His sister wants to renovate the place and move on – like they had agreed to – and he wants to stay in his childhood home. His fascination with exotic creatures, which he shared with his estranged best friend (Finnegan Oldfield) leads him to a venomous spider.

He gets the spider from a questionable salesman and is extremely careless with it. While I can accept that Kaleb as a person is careless in many areas of his life, he does care for the animals. This leads to to think that he would and should know better.

However, for things to escalate, he clearly doesn’t and the spider escapes. Also, it procreates. Fast. As in extremely fast. Before anyone can react, a full-blown infestation has happened. Actually, the police reacted quickly, but quarantined the building with all the tenants trapped inside with the spiders!

An elevated spider horror movie

The term “elevated horror” had been all the rage for the past ten years or so. From Jordan Peele’s Get Out to Ari Aster’s Hereditary, anything that touches on subjects that go beyond “classic slasher” seems to be labeled elevated horror.

Hey, fine by me, if that means I get more amazing horror movies. Also, we gave both of the above-mentioned movies a top rating!

I love the work of Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, who tend to have some social commentary or personal trauma as part of their stories. Not unlike many other horror movies that are labeled as “drama” the moment wider audiences relate to them.

In any case, my point (and I do have one!) is simply that Infested could be called an elevated spider horror movie as it has a political social commentary edge as well.

It is obvious that if this spider infestation had happened in a wealthy area, the action and reaction of authorities would have been quite different. Also, it lends a double meaning to the original French title of Vermines.

Despite being pronounced with a bit more flair in French, it means the same as in English. Many view the tenants of the rundown apartment building as vermin. Or, based on the English title, they feel that the people (mostly poor immigrants or children of the same) are an infestation in their society.

Watch Infested on Shudder!

The new spider horror movie was directed by Sébastien Vaniček, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Florent Bernard. I personally love that this isn’t “just” a horror movie about spiders, but also includes the extra angle of being a political social commentary.

It’s easy to understand why this movie has won awards at very prestigious genre film festivals. Including “Best Picture (Horror)” and “Best Director (Horror)” at the 2023 Fantastic Fest, and the 2023 Sitges Film Festival Special Jury Award for “being a powerful and political monster movie”.

The runtime is 106 minutes, which means it goes quite a bit longer than the more classic hour and a half for these monster movies set in one location. However, we start in another country, so that takes up some of the runtime. Also, there’s the added social commentary, which becomes key later.

I wasn’t crazy about the main character, which is why we’re ending on a 3 out of 5 rating. However, as a straight-up (and very crazy) spider horror movie, it could have easily gotten a 4 out of 5. Watch it… if you can take the creepy crawlies!

Infested is coming to Shudder on April 26, 2024.

Details

Director: Sébastien Vaniček
Screenwriters: Florent Bernard, Sébastien Vaniček
Cast: Théo Christine, Finnegan Oldfield, Jérôme Niel, Sofia Lesaffre and Lisa Nyarko