User Reviews

Since the makers of "Livid" made quite an impact in the world of horror movies with their debut "Inside" I guess I was not the only one eager to see what they would come up with next. I did not expect another "Inside", so the fact that the basic plot was a recooked stew of horror movie clichés (old decrepit house, evil old lady, kids breaking in and acting dumb, takes place at Halloween...) mashed into a ghost story was not what is my problem with this movie. There even was a surprise after the movie starts out like a rip-off of "The Grudge" with very "Silent Hill"-style visual ideas and turns into a mix of ghost horror meets modern fable. The visuals are great, the lead actress has a great aura, the sound design is as cool and fear inducing as in "Inside" ... but the plot is a total mess. There is so much unexplainable and random happening, lots of cool visual ideas that just don't make any sense and the lead characters act really dumb from the beginning on. So what is the plot? Girl starts new job as a nurse for elderly people, comes into an old house with an evil older woman lying in a bed with an oxygen mask and blood infusions and hears about a treasure which the rich old hag must be hiding. Girl and friends decide to break in and steal the treasure and end up in a creepy house with strange ghosts and the evil old ballet teacher killing them off with her electric zombie vampire daughter, some zombie ballerina kids and lots of creepy toys.

Nothing is explained and comes together... why are the woman and her daughter strange vampire creatures that can't go out in daylight... and even worse not at nighttime? Why does the girl play with creepy electric toys with stuffed animal heads, how come Mrs. evil Ballet teacher is so obsessed with making her daughter dance until she literally breaks, why is the woman not just an evil vampire but also very good in fixing mechanic spines, why is the lead nurse obliged to serve from childhood on, why are little killer ballerinas introduced and never mentioned again, why are people turning into zombies after being killed, why are there blue flames in the fields and why is the house spinning in space, why did the girl take the "wrong book" when she didn't even take one or look closely at it?

Its a shame... the ending is a total cheese-fest and doesn't resolve any of the question but rather ends more on top. The movie is like a random Frankenstein monster built of very obvious parts ripped from other top horror movies. They even go for copying themselves when some frantic neck stabbing with Scissors is re-introduced from "INside" with less blood fountains and some gory scenes (particularly the jaw-tearing scene) seem thrown in gratuitously to not totally let down the "Inside"-Fans. Storytelling is a mess, editing is equally disjointed and the flashback transitions felt really lame... two scenes were near ridiculous, one being the cheesy ending of course and the other when the old hag screams for her daughter to dance... that felt like misplaced satire. The good visuals, acting and sound design and the creepy location and strange mechanic toys felt wasted on a bad script. After all an average movie with a lot of shadows and a lot of light ending in utter mediocrity... high expectations lie shattered.

I first saw this in 2012 on a dvd which I own n i liked it then but after revisiting it recently i found the ending a bit silly n somehow the movie doesn't explain too much.

The film started off very well, in fact Don't Breathe borrowed the initial synopsis of three youngsters breaking into an old fella's house n made it into a tight thriller but this movie went downhill.

Why wud Mrs. Wilson as a kid help Deborah Jessel thru the anatomical mumbo jumbo operation?

Was an older Mrs Wilson a child killer or she jus killing random kids for Jessel's blood supply?

What was the gain of Mrs Wilson by doing all these stuff?

The makers of Inside 2007 are so obsessed with the scissor stabbings that they added scissor stabbings in this too.

All in all, as a fan of the director duo n somehow this movie is a bit different, i am generous with a 6 on second viewing.

First viewing i had rated it an 8.

Was the jaw breaking scene required? But it was very well done.

Back in 2009, French filmmakers Alexandrew Bustillo and Julien Maury brought a small independent horror film to the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie was Inside, an incredibly bloody and frightening tale of a pregnant woman fighting off an attacker who has infiltrated her home. Inside helped contribute to a long string of superior French made horror films that included Martyrs, Frontier and High Tension. Bustillo and Maury came back to the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011 to showcase their new horror film, Livid, a horrible mess of a film that left the audience stunned in numb WTF-ness. Livid begins by introducing us to Lucy (Chloé Coulloud), a cute looking young girl with two different colored eyes that is starting her first day as a caregiver alongside her mentor Mrs. Wilson (Catherine Jacob). They travel from home to home, administering medication to the elderly until they reach the home of Mr. Jessel (Marie-Claude Pietragalla). Here, Mrs. Wilson asks for Lucy to stay in the car believing the young apprentice to 'not be ready' for this one yet. But Lucy's curiosity gets the better of her and she soon follows Mrs. Wilson into the home where she is introduced to the comatose Mrs. Jessel lying on her bed with a oxygen mask on to assist with her breathing. Mrs. Wilson then tells Lucy of a treasure hidden somewhere in the home and this gives Lucy's boyfriend William (Serge Cabon) an idea when they discuss the workday over a drink at the local pub. William wants to break into the Jessel residence and steal from the coma stricken woman the fortune that would give himself, Lucy and brother Ben (Loïc Berthezene) a better life. The three travel to the old house later that night and break-in in search of their treasure. But what they encounter will be a home filled with taxidermy animals and a secret so deep that their revelation brings out elements of the supernatural. Whereas Inside was a masterpiece set inside the constrictive walls of a house and pitted two women against each other in a bold and bloody rage, Livid throws its protagonists into a house and then throws logic out the front door. The film includes vampires, ghosts, a serial killer, a murderous mother who looks like the ugly witch in Sleeping Beauty, and veil wearing children who like to beat and stab their victims to death. Bustillo and Maury don't just throw everything but the kitchen sink at their audience, they throw the whole kitchen at us too! The entire vampire angle just didn't work and although they implemented the whole 'sunlight is bad' rule, they pretty much ignore the rest in winging the story that Bustillo and Maury both penned. There were too many scenes that just didn't make sense – what's with the blue flame in the garden? Why is the house hovering in space? What's with the book that Lucy chooses and was Anna (Jessel's daughter that we are told was born mute and died years earlier) an angel at the end of the film? Worsening matters is the fact that Livid is just not very scary. It had one scene that force jumped the audience, but the remainder of any suspense or surprise came from the overbearing score that punctuated scenes that weren't scary enough to get a jolt out of its audience. Add two that where Inside and Martyr's went outside the normal conventions of the genre, Livid used the horror handbook for its step-by-step instruction. The characters are dumb (they bring only one flashlight to a robbery at night), they split up making them easier to pick off and they just don't act smart in situations that call for a bit of common sense. Bustillo and Maury really missed the mark on this one and they did nothing to help rectify the fact that French horror films are getting hard to finance as they discussed after the film's screening. Bustillo and Maury may still have a great future ahead of them. But as for now, all I will remember them for was one good film, and Livid was not it.

I watch plenty of horror movies and very often I am bored. The reason is: in this genre, movies often follow the same old story lines. This movie is different and that might be its biggest problem. It is not a real splatter movie, it is not a real haunted house movie, it is not a real fantasy movie or a real monster/vampire movie. It is a unique mixture of many genres and I can understand that some people don't like this film. Are there plot holes? YES! Does everything make sense? NO! Are there lame moments? YES! BUT: I really enjoyed it. I loved the atmosphere, the soundtrack and the poetic moments close to the end. This is one movie that will become a part of my Bluray collection.

So my recommendation: Get some nice wine or a good cup of tea and slip under a warm blanket. In my opinion is this a movie for a great evening in autumn.

The story in Livide is a unique and intriguing twist of horror ingredients. I was decidedly impressed with it, by the end, but there are definitely some things in the presentation that could be tidied up.

The acting is weak, which is unfortunate, as so much of the 3rd act of the story depends on image rather than dialogue. There are a couple of fantasy scenes that cross the line into cheesy from artistic, which takes away from the actual intelligence of the plot.

Still, there are also several scenes that have fantastic imagery that is rarely capitalized on in western horror. Ballerinas are freaky, music dolls are creepy, humans as dolls are creepy - and underused! I also loved the image of Jessel repairing Anna's back with a metal webwork. Very Tim Burton in look and atmosphere.

It's also always fascinating to watch what other cultures produce as horror, bc of the differences from place to place. The directorial style, the atmosphere, the score, even the flow of dialogue is so incredibly different from how we present horror in North America.

A couple of changes in casting, better overall pacing in the first two acts, and some polishing on the fantasy angle, and this would be right up there with The Orphanage in perfection. Worth a watch if you are a horror fan that respects the subtleties of the cultural horror divide.

Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's LIVID opens with a foreboding credits sequence featuring funereal imagery, as well as an ominously abandoned car.

We are then introduced to Lucie (Chloe Coulloud), who is going through the daily routine of her job as a nurse's (Catherine Jacob) aide. Their last stop is an enormous, remote mansion, where an ancient woman lies dying in bed. When the nurse tells Lucie that the old woman has a treasure hidden in the house, Lucie tells her impulsive boyfriend and his brother.

The resulting plan is simple. Its execution is not.

The Directors have created a wonderfully disturbing, supernatural horror film. It's pretty obvious early on that things are heading in a dark and sinister direction, but the story twists in bizarre, unexpected ways. This is a ghost story, as well as a vampire tale. The use of flashbacks is effective in fleshing it out.

A unique, sometimes shocking horror film...

This movie has a lot going for it from the outset - a creepy atmosphere, a creepy French countryside setting, a big old creepy house in that creepy French countryside setting, a vaguely hinted at backstory, and a gorgeous lead actress. What it lacked was coherence, and anything resembling narrative structure. Three typically stupid teenagers break into an old mansion out in the middle of BFE to steal the quasi legendary treasure of comatose resident. Highjinks ensue. The last 45 minutes I had no idea what was going on. Are these vampires? Are these witches? Are these vampire witches? Are these vampire witches with a penchant for ballet? Multiple tropes from dozens of other movies are all stirred together in a large pot with the hope of it somehow coalescing into a scary movie. While undeniably rich on atmosphere, it falls flat, and never turns into what it could have been. I've yet to be convinced the French can make a decent horror film. Too bad, what with the wealth of history and legends and stories that country has, you'd think they'd be able to churn out some pretty solid spook shows. But no, they're all like this one: loaded with potential if you're lucky, but never delivering. I gave this film a generous three because of all that creepy atmosphere that they unfortunately wasted. Meh.

The acting was good but the rest was a hot mess. Predictable and all over the place this movie was random. The beginning was promising but this movie slowly descended into weirdness. There's nothing scary here but the lack of storyline. I know there was a vision here but it was not executed well. I'm also not a fan of vampire movies so that may be why. Happy I was able to watch this for free. I don't understand how the title ties to the movie. Also, if this woman is a vampire how did she grow old? Makes no sense. On the other hand, The cinematography was decent so that's a positive I guess. Overall a waste of time.

My initial expectations were that this film would be a classic teenager-slaughter-haunted-house-screamer type of horror. All I knew about it was what was written in the description on IMDb. I didn't read the reviews or the message boards, fearing spoilers, and I didn't pay much attention to the rating either, as somewhere along the line of 7.0 tend to be the upper end of the scale for horror movies on IMDb.

I was wrong in my initial assumptions. The film is not a gore flick in a classic meaning of this term. Yes, there is quite a lot of blood, fresh wounds and bodily harm, but it is certainly not the main component of this film. And I'm not talking suspense or survival either. The main component of this movie is... *dramatic drum roll* ...writer/directors' poorly executed ideas! Don't get me wrong, it's symbolism in its best - there is a second and indeed a third bottom to this story. It is just so distractingly told it takes away all the immersion and replaces it with a feeling of... You know that feeling when after seeing a stand-up comedy show your friend starts re-telling one of the jokes that the comedian told, but for some reason it just doesn't sound very funny at all? It's THAT feeling - awkwardness mixed up with appreciation and contempt... sort of.

The story follows a young caregiver and her two male companions, as they make their way into an old woman's house, to acquire some of her possessions in a less-than-legal way. Without spoiling too much, I can tell that what follows is an interesting, though as I said poorly executed journey into the history of the house and its owners. There is bloodshed of course and a few loud-noise-sudden-movement type of scares, which are, sadly, predictable. But there is more bad news than good news I'm afraid. While the story is moving and original, the characters are underdeveloped and hard to relate to. Sometimes they act irrationally and not even in the classic "let's check this dark basement" kind of way - they just do weird things against all reason and in a ridiculously scripted manner. Some of the events, though evoke symbolic meanings, do not fit very well into the overall mood of the scene, or the film in general.

Acting is bad. There are only a couple of decent performances, and that's Catherine Jacob as Catherine Wilson and Chloé Marcq as Anna. The rest was just bad - especially Jérémy Kapone as Ben - even when afraid he just looks bored. Because of the poor acting and underdeveloped characters you never really connect with any of the protagonists.

There are of course good sides to the film as well - the story is interesting, the setting is atmospheric and very detailed. The mood is there for the most part and that is all extremely important for a horror movie to give the viewer what he wants: a piece of shiver-inducing entertainment.

In closing, I must say that as hard as it is to make even a half-decent horror movie, to make a horror movie that has as much depth and complexity as Livid is even harder. And because Livid pulls it off and manages to deliver a few scares here and there, it deserves at least some recognition.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy the film if you haven't watched it already.

Sorry guys, I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but I don't think I can avoid a few.

Well, this movie has two very distinct parts.

The first part goes from the beginning until the main characters find Mrs. Jessel's daughter. The movie is quite nice that far. The house is great, very good mood, plenty of suggestions… In two words: well made.

The second part goes from the finding of Mrs. Jessel's daughter on, and let me tell you, the movie turns into something rather horrendous to watch (unless, of course, you are into teenage horror cheap movies). From them on, you have characters making crazy impossible assumptions, unsustainable with what they know; the suggestions I mentioned turning to strange creatures that we never get to know full well what they are; and the inevitable "coming back one more time when all seems over" of the bad guys.

The cherry on top, the spoiler that really illustrates what this movie is about, and that, had I known, that would spare me the time I lost watching Livide, is seeing the main character, Lucie Klavel, punching the… well, monster that haunts the house in the face, and throwing it/she over the stairs all the way to the ground floor.

And basically it comes to this: If you enjoy teenagers and monsters going at it, you might like this movie. If not, you'll probably find it terribly bad, as I have.

Livid is a Gothic horror in absolutely classic mould, and all the clichés are present and correct: spooky house, boss-eyed dolls, cobwebs, taxidermy, ballet, old woman with long fingernails and so on. If you don't fancy cheese, move along. But it's effective: although it sometimes falls back on jump-scares it does maintain a genuinely creepy atmosphere throughout its runtime. The Argento comparisons some have made here aren't too far off the money.

There are problems here, as other reviewers have pointed out. Not everything makes sense, and in some cases (e.g. the team of ballet-assassins) it's pretty much inexcusable. Unlike most reviewers here, though, I liked the last 10 minutes. Your mileage may vary.

I was disappointed by Inside; my expectations where just for a tense, enjoyable genre film and that's what you get. It won't change your life but it's a fun ride.

Considering what an utter piece of crap "Inside" was, it's a good thing I didn't know that "Livide" came from the same pens and minds – otherwise I would have avoided it. While with several loose ends, the plot of "Livide" is infinitely more logical than the legendarily idiotic and sadistic-for-the-sake-of-it "Inside": this – in spite of "Livide" being a supernatural horror film, whereas "Inside" is a thriller. Still, at least "Inside" has a lot of style going for it (if only zero substance), having hinted that its creators might be able to achieve something worthwhile eventually; and they did, a surprisingly good job.

"Livide" is a refreshingly original take on the by-now very worn-out vampire genre. Frankly, if I see another set of fangs going into a screaming maiden's neck, I'll either puke or break my jaw yawning. "Livide" is nothing of the sort though; in fact, vampirism isn't even revealed until about an hour into the movie. Once it is, it is given a whole new spin for the viewer to have fun with. Not to mention how well-filmed all of this is; French movies rarely disappoint in the visual department.

Plot-holes abound. 1) What happened to the three young zombie dancers, and who are they? 2) Was Lucie's mother (Dalle) some kind of a witch or perhaps even a vampire herself? 3) Did Lucie and Anna switch minds or not? There is evidence to support both options. 4) Why did Lucie not panic like her male companions, but chose (?) to "go with the flow"? Why did she give Ms. Dracula her hands for a telepathic session for exposition? From the scarce information given, it is quite impossible to connect all the parts of the story into a cohesive whole.

On the other hand, there are advantages to the story's unresolved, and later even further deepened, mystery. The viewer doesn't always need to have everything drawn for him. Besides, it is so much easier to forgive loose-ends when a movie is executed so well. And it's unpredictable, which is always both a blessing and a rarity, not just in horror films. I always criticize French cinema for being "style over substance", but the style suffices this time around, and the semi-complete/confusing but original premise and events make up for the logic flaws. And anyway, there are no aspects of "Livide" that make it overtly cretinous; merely a little "unfinished".

I do have to wonder though what the French have against little girls. Dozens of their films deal with underage Lolitas having affairs with ugly, aging men; an annoying tradition of pedophilic themes that is almost uniquely French. This time around no young girls flirt or have sex with smelly old men, but an innocent little girl is savagely butchered and dismembered. France, leave them girls alone! Frcrissakes, extreme violence against children should be a no-no in films, I'd think that would be quite obvious.