It’s Christmas Eve, and a trio of dumb, horny guys get thrown out of a nightclub, do a “gas and dash” and head to the country retreat of a babe (Roxanne Mesquida) they’ve just met. At her country farm house, where creepy dolls lurk at every turn, housekeeper Joseph (Vincent Cassel) sports a crazy grin, bad teeth and mad eyes. He is fond of using dubious racial slurs like “camel rider” and his nearest and dearest include a weird, randy niece who jacks off dogs and a wife who devotes her time to collecting hair while preparing for an imminent “birth”.
A marvellously loopy, Cassel – who’s simultaneously hilarious and disturbing – dominates this utterly warped French variation on all those crazy, inbred families of post-Vietnam American horror. SHEITAN – which translates as “Satan”, its UK release title – has a suitably twisted sense of humour throughout but achieves a hard-to-pull-off balancing act between broad sicko comedy and genuine terror.
The build-up yields laughs from Cassel’s initially amusing craziness but has some of the insidious slow-burning creepiness of David Lynch’s oeuvre. Director Kim Chapiron keeps the audience on edge with scenes that are both funny and quietly unsettling (notably a skinny dipping sequence early on). Some of the throwaway comic asides – including a sexual anecdote ending with the line “There it was, the cold cut platter” – only reinforce the sense of mounting unease.
The payoff to all this Gallic weirdness is a frenetic, messy birth scene and a disorientating, blackly funny festive family gathering featuring some extreme tips for ways in which prospective parents can entertain their new born. SHEITAN is low on gore but big on sexy girls, nudity and a sense of barely contained lunacy.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
