The brutal
French splatter film Frontier(s) opens with footage of riots in the Paris suburbs in
response to the election of an extreme right-wing candidate. It then
transitions from the frying pan into the fire, as four hoodlums flee the
authorities for the countryside and wind up in an inn operated by cannibalistic
neo-Nazis. That juxtaposition is what passes for social commentary in the film,
which otherwise commits itself to a relentlessly ugly and derivative reworking
of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Along with films like Á L'Intérieur (Inside) and Haute Tension (High Tension), Frontier(s) represents a mini-movement of
Hollywood-slick yet fashionably outré French horror that seeks to beat its
extreme American counterparts at their own game. In this particular case,
director Xavier Gens (Hitman) probably should have aimed higher.