They do everything else with sickening panache, but the French have never got to grips with the slasher flick, which makes this back-to-basics horror as unexpected as it is violent. A sexy teen (Cécile De France) is invited to the family home of her best friend (Maïwenn Le Besco) out in the French equivalent of redneck country. She meets mum, dad and little brother, night falls, a rusty old van pulls up outside, a fat bloke gets out and starts graphically raping and killing everyone. No intellectual chit-chat here, then.
DiRECTED BY Mel Gibson
STARRING James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci
Opened March 26, Cert 18, 126 mins
If you enjoyed the finale of Braveheart, where Mel Gibson was hanged, drawn and quartered in lascivious close-up, then this is the movie for you. This time it's worse and lasts for two hours, as we're dragged through Christ's final hours of torture and crucifixion.
Gibson apparently wanted to "just tell the truth" about the death of Christ, but Mel's the last guy you'd go to for authenticity (Braveheart? The Patriot? Hello?).
OPENS APRIL 2, CERT 15,99 MINS
Halle Berry plays a prison psychologist whose most interesting patient (Penélope Cruz) claims she's being raped by the Devil. While she ponders this, Berry sees a ghost, passes out and wakes up a prisoner in her own jail. Colleague Robert Downey Jr explains she's murdered her own husband with an axe, but she can't remember a thing. What's more, she keeps seeing the ghost, and has the eerie message "not alone" somehow carved into her arm, Richie Manic-style.
What's going on? Is she already dead, like in Jacob's Ladder?
