Vermines (Infested, 2023) is a French horror-thriller film directed by Sébastien Vaniček, who also wrote the screenplay with Florent Bernard, and this is also his first feature film. The film premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival (International Critics' Week), then screened at Fantastic Fest and Sitges, where it won Best Film and Best Director.
The film revolves around Kaleb (played by Théo Christine), a young man living in a poor apartment building on the outskirts of Paris, who is passionate about exotic animals. During a visit to a second-hand store, he accidentally buys a very poisonous desert spider and names it Rihanna. The more luxurious it is, the more dangerous it is, because after just a few hours, the spider digs a nest, lays eggs and explodes into a "giant" spider swarm in the entire building.
From then on, the lives of the residents here become an “eight-legged nightmare”: one person is bitten, another dies, furniture is covered in spider webs, while the electrical system and elevator in the building become increasingly unstable. The group – including Kaleb, his sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko), friends Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield), Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) and Mathys (Jérôme Niel) – must face terrible dangers, fighting to survive while fighting against the contempt of the police who consider them “a bunch of lazy suburbanites”. Vermines' artistry and emotion are highly appreciated in most of the first runtime, when creating continuous terrifying situations through editing techniques, applying a combination of real spiders and CGI effects, making the audience's heart pound. According to Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri, the film brings a feeling of “physical pain” when the baby spider crawls up the character’s arm, evoking obsession and arrhythmia. Details such as the flickering metro lighting or the trembling footsteps in the spider webs are praised by many experts for the art of creating tense scenes.Another strength of the film is its social aspect, simulating the disease of prejudice when the police blockade the building in the same way the government blockaded the epidemic area, and treated the locals rudely. This is a subtle commentary on injustice, discrimination of status and origin between the government and the poor.
However, Vermines also received criticism when entering the final segment. Many opinions said that the film became a bit rushed, lacking emotional depth in the relationship between Kaleb and supporting characters such as Jordy, his sister; and the ending was unconvincing when compared to the potential of the first 2/3 of the film.Commercially, the film was a success in France with around 200,000 tickets sold, grossing over $1.9 million domestically and $2.4 million worldwide. The film was also nominated for two categories at the 2024 Césars – First Film and Visual Effects. Since late December 2023 in France, Vermines has been released in many countries and on the Shudder platform (USA – Canada) in April 2024
Conclusion: Vermines demonstrates the impressive maturity of director Sébastien Vaniček when transforming the fear of “spiders” into a sharp commentary on class distinction and discrimination. If you are a fan of tense horror movies, love clever jump scares and a bit of social depth, Vermines is worth choosing. But if you expect a completely touching ending, you may not feel completely satisfied.
