Frontier(s) (aka Frontière(s)) first published by Film4 Summary: Writer/director Xavier Gens’s feature debut transposes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the French borders, throwing some contemporary politics (along with its hapless principals) into the pot. Review: It is 2002. Unexpectedly defeating the Left’s main candidate in a first-round upset, leader of the extreme right National Front Jean-Marie…
Accepting the other: Xavier Gens on his latest genre film, Cold Skin – first published by SciFiNow With the borderland butchery (and cutting-edge politics) of his feature debut Frontier(s) (2007), Xavier Gens was on the very crest of the ‘French Extreme’ New Wave. While he was a journeyman director on the studio VG adaptation Hitman (2007),…
The ABCs of Death first published in Sight & Sound, May 2013 Synopsis: An anthology of 26 short films, each named for a different letter of the alphabet, each directed by different genre filmmakers, and each focused upon death. Review: “I’m sorry, it was going to be better – but we didn’t have time.” The…