Third act problems curtail the likeablility of this French film; which is a shame, because it gets into a good, confident stride in the early stages with its well-drawn characters and plausible story developments before it stumbles at the end.
It's primarily a drama that skirts the fringes of horror for the majority of the runtime, but it couldn't resist plunging into full-on horror territory in the last third, rushing the lead character's arc into a corner that holds no redemption (feeding a dog to hungry insects out of desperation and greed is not okay).
Plus the behaviour of the locusts was questionable in the latter stages as well. I'm no expert, but how the swarm acted didn't seem right (drunk on blood or not) so it all felt a bit hokey once they escaped.
Overall, the first hour or so was great in its construction and pacing, but the writers became too eager to deliver typical horror thrills rather than let things play out more organically once the threat was established.
6/10.
It's primarily a drama that skirts the fringes of horror for the majority of the runtime, but it couldn't resist plunging into full-on horror territory in the last third, rushing the lead character's arc into a corner that holds no redemption (feeding a dog to hungry insects out of desperation and greed is not okay).
Plus the behaviour of the locusts was questionable in the latter stages as well. I'm no expert, but how the swarm acted didn't seem right (drunk on blood or not) so it all felt a bit hokey once they escaped.
Overall, the first hour or so was great in its construction and pacing, but the writers became too eager to deliver typical horror thrills rather than let things play out more organically once the threat was established.
6/10.