Inside directors unveil argento-inspired vampire film Like a spider sucking out the liquefied innards of a
big, tasty insect, English-language cinema has made a habit of luring promising new foreign horror directors to its fold, only to trap them into making cliché films that feed the Hollywood behemoth. It’s a fate that Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, the French direc- tors of 2007’s nail-biter Inside (a.k.a. A l’interieur, RM#78), have dodged twice now, first by famously walking away from the Hellraiser reboot, and now with their second feature, Livid (Livide). Originally planned as an English-language release
shot in Ireland for $8.5 million, Livid was ultimately lensed in French Brittany, and financed by Inside’s producers for less than a quarter of the original budget. Despite boasting more locations than Inside, it was given less than that movie’s 35 days to shoot. “We were losing control over the artistic element,”
Maury says of the decision to try to do more with less. “It really wasn’t easy because Livid is much more am- bitious in terms of action, special effects, the number of actors, etc.” The film, which has already been picked up for
distribution by Dimension, is inspired by Malatav- erne, a novel by French writer Bernard Clavel in which a group of friends decide to break into the home of an old woman. In this version, a young woman named Lucy shows up for her job as an in- home caregiver to an elderly, comatose, former dance teacher who is thought to have hoarded quite a treasure somewhere in her house. One night Lucy and two friends decide to search the place for the loot, which is when their vampire troubles begin. But this isn’t your standard bloodsucker film. “Our movie is a sort of fantastic continuation of
the novel, mixed in a universe dominated by ballet dance, openly referencing Suspiria,” explains Maury. “In Livid, you will not see either crucifix or garlic. Vampirism is one of the founding myths of the fantastic culture but also one of the most known. It has been [explored] in all its forms, so it is difficult to be original. Our vi- sion is about deep solitude in the world of the living, and despair arising from its abyssal lack of love.” Though Livid employs French
Brittany’s cinematic landscapes and Celtic lore to pull the movie more into the realm of a tradi- tional fantasy than a straight-up home invasion flick, Maury prom- ises that there’s plenty to appeal to fans of Inside, too. “We did not necessarily want to make another
Livid: Andre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s follow-up to Inside is heavily influenced by Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
hardcore film but as we cannot fight against our nature, Livid still contains some very violent se- quences.”
The movie shares some other
key similarities with their first fea- ture, as well, including the use of cinematographer Laurent Barès, who has a painter’s eye for im- ages. As he did in Inside, Barès will be taking visual inspiration from 17th-century baroque painter Georges de La Tour, whose haunt- ing work often uses candles as a light source. (For Livid, Barès will also be drawing from the dance- themed work of 19th-century im- pressionist painter Edgar Degas, points out Maury.)
Inside’s savage “La Femme,” Béatrice Dalle, will also return. “Dalle declared one day that she wanted to play
in all our movies, so we took this very seriously,” notes Maury. “In Livid she plays the main charac- ter’s mother but has only a relatively brief role. On the other hand, narratively speaking, she is ab- solutely crucial in the development of the story; this is not just a cameo.” Admittedly for the filmmakers, even aesthetics
run a close second to the horrific creature at the centre of the tale. “We are in love with and fasci- nated by monsters and villains,” Maury allows. “In A l’interieur, for us, the real hero was not the preg- nant girl but La Femme. As we often take as an example, George Lucas did not make a new trilogy about Luke, but about Vader.” Livid will have its world premiere this month at
the Toronto International Film Festival, as part of the Midnight Madness program.
A.S. BERMAN
D R E A D L I N E S
9 RM
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