Against all odds, it seems as though modern-day French horror
has a keen grip on what is truly frightening. It can be intense
— Pascal Laugier’s eviscerating Martyrs taps into difficult
notions of pain and existentialism, while Alexandre Bustillo’s
equally trying Inside puts an expectant mother through the
ringer to horrifying effect. David Moreau and Xavier Palud’s
Them is a lot simpler than either of those movies, but it’s
still a potent horror thriller, and it taps into something a lot
less specific and more primal: fear of invasion and of pursuit.
It’s a skeletal, bare-bones setup that Moreau and Palud get an
astonishing amount of mileage out of: a young couple realizes
they’re not alone in their house in the woods, and are
subsequently terrorized. And that’s it; no demons conjured by
misguided seances, no chainsaw-toting inbreds, no poltergeists
rattling doors and stacking chairs. Them is an astonishingly
simple horror film; at 77 scant minutes, it feels like a quick
sucker punch, and yet it gets everyt