Much like the J-horror boom a few years back, it seems like France is the new hotspot for kick-ass horror films. Films such as Haute Tension, Them, and Inside take extreme, harrowing horror to a whole new level, and I personally loved all of them (Them to a lesser extent than the other two though). So it was with much anticipation that I awaited the release of Xavier Gens Frontiere(s), and that anticipation only grew larger when After Dark Films postponed the films October release due to not being able to garner an R rating from the MPAA. This baby couldn’t be compromised, and they wanted to release it in its full, uncut glory. Clearly, this must mean it’s just as effective and in-your-face as its French horror brethren, right? Well, just like we found out with J-horror, they unfortunately can’t all be winners.

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The premise sounds promising enough, though. Paris is in crisis as a right-wing candidate for the presidential election is gaining ground towards winning, and protesting has erupted into violent riots and looting. A group of young thieves, 4 guys and a pregnant girl, flee Paris in search of refuge. They come upon a backwoods hotel that seems secluded and quiet enough to hide them from the law long enough until things die down. The place is secluded and quiet though for a reason: it’s run by a family of Neo-Nazi’s. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re also cannibals. And guess what? They’re hungry.

While the premise is indeed treading familiar ground, the idea of the villains being Neo-Nazi cannibals is enough to make things seem different on the surface. The sad fact though is that it’s just not exploited enough. At the end of the day, they’re just another crazy backwoods family that likes to kill. The only way you even realize these guys are Nazi’s is because the father of the group walks around acting the Führer and spouting off German rhetoric. The rest of the family act like your standard, inbred crazies that we’ve seen in a million other films with the same premise. It definitely screams “wasted potential”.

But hey, myself being a horror fan, I’ve more times than not forgiven a film for being cliché and treading familiar ground if everything works. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. The number one reason I didn’t care for the film was that I just didn’t care about the people I was supposed to. Even when the characters you’re supposed to be rooting for come off as unlikeable or lame, you can still find joy in them meeting an untimely demise. Here, the protagonists are just there. They’re thieves, so right there that’s a strike against the characters that are supposed to be “The Good Guys”. They also, for the most part, act the role of thieves and thugs, and don’t have that “inner good” that could cause you to have empathy for them. Hell, they kill a cop in the first 10 minutes of the film! Granted, the girl of the group is the main character you’re supposed to be rooting for and hoping survives, and it works. The problem I had is that the focus isn’t on her until the final third of the film, and by then, I just didn’t care anymore. It was too late for the film to sink its claws into me.

And I’m actually fortunate the film didn’t sink its claws into me. Because if it had, I would have still walked away disappointed, as the end is pretty weak. A couple of the “final showdowns” are nicely executed, but the one that counts, the last one, is severely lacking. If you really get behind this girl, you’ll want to see her gain some true retribution through turning the violence around on her captors, but unfortunately the film goes out with a poof instead of a bang.

The film does, however, succeed on a technical level. The direction is certainly reminiscent of French horror, where everything looks and feels grimy and evil. You’ll definitely know you’re watching a horror flick. The nasty gore we’ve come to expect from the Frenchies is also intact here, with some truly gruesome kills and much bloodletting. The gorehounds will surely be sated.

For the rest of us though, that want solid story and emotion with our heaps of gore will more than likely walk away disappointed. While not a complete failure, the combination of a far too familiar premise, unexplored potential, and unsympathetic characters all adds up to a ho-hum experience. View this one with your expectations knocked down a few notches.