I was pleasantly surprised by this film, which I chose last night, without knowing anything about the story or who was behind it. I just wanted to see some "Horror" and the poster caught my attention.

It has everything I like: Terror, Violence, Blood, a beautiful actress as the main character and a story with a fast pace, a growing tension and delirious scenes.

Who is the director?

Vincent Paronnaud is the French filmmaker who is directing the film. Paronnaud is very famous on the comic book circuit, where he is known under the pseudonym of Winshluss. He is one of the writers and cartoonists of the French independent comic strip. He has a lot of published comics, such as Monsieur Ferraille , Pat Boon , Welcome to the Death Club , Smart monkey and even a new version of the classic Pinocchio. Much of his career was in Ferraille magazine.

If you still don't know who Paronnaud is, he is the writer and director, along with Marjane Satrapi of the 2007 animated film Persepolis, which was critically acclaimed and received several awards.

For the film Persepolis he won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the César Award for Best First Film and for Best Adapted Screenplay. The New York Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Critics Association awarded her the prize for Best Animated Film. In addition to the Oscar nominations for Best Animated Film, the Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA and BIFA nominations. That animated film about the Islamic revolution seen through the eyes of a little girl was a success.

In 2011 he will work again with Marjane Satrapi and release another animated film, Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with Plums), which tells the story of a violinist who decides to wait for death in Tehran in the 1950s. The film did not have the same success as Persepolis and the criticism was uneven. Paronnaud continued to make animated films, in short film format, premiering Territoire in 2014 and La Mort, père & fils in 2017, receiving the jury award at the Annecy Festival and nominated for the César award for best animated short film.

The comic book experience is used by the filmmaker to make this film effective, where the story and scenes seem to be taken from a graphic novel. Besides directing it, he writes the script with the help of Léa Pernollet.

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What is the plot?

Éve is on a business trip, after a telephone discussion with her partner and pressure from her boss, she decides to go out for a drink in a bar. Immediately she is disturbed by an impertinent man who wants to buy her a drink. An enigmatic man approaches and drives away the impertinent one. Eve and the strange man begin to open up and have a good conversation. He tells her that he is accompanying his brother, a young man who is sitting at a table. The couple goes to the car to have a one-night stand, but suddenly everything changes, the young man gets into the car and she is taken prisoner. The worst nightmare has begun for her, a fight between the victim and the hunter, where the roles are constantly reversed. The wolf is hungry, but the prey will not be easy to devour.

Cosmogony (Hunted) is a modern fable where a little red riding hood crosses paths with the worst fierce wolf: the predatory man.

A mixture of the subgenres of horror: Rape and Revenge, Survival and Slasher, set in a current era and with a supernatural touch, developing much of the action in a mysterious forest.

The Prologue gives us the basis of the film's tone, when a mother and her little son, who are camped in the deep forest, tell a magical and terrifying legend that happened in that place centuries ago, the woman of the wolves. When the boy, named Jeremy, asks her if the wolves are still in the forest, she answers him: The wolves are gone, but the men are still here.

This is a fun night for Eve, who dresses in red, in clear reference to a small red hood, and it becomes a night of terror, when she meets a couple of men, who seem charming, but who are actually psychopaths, who enjoy torturing, raping and killing women, while filming everything to have it as a memory.

The mysterious forest, where the strange events seem to coincide to be an ally of the girl, who must do everything necessary to escape from her kidnappers.

This wild story has an unstoppable rhythm, it is 87 minutes of total adrenaline. The tension increases, the change between genres is perfectly synchronized, without affecting the development of the story, on the contrary, they make it more attractive. As well as the constant changes between the victim and the hunter. It is a battle to the death between the two protagonists, without skimping on violent and black humorous scenes, which made me enjoy the whole film.

The complete change, of a peaceful and weak woman, that the circumstances make her stumble on the way with a couple of human predators, is full of symbolism of the classic horror stories. A wild boar that is pushed through the forest to cause an accident, black crows that represent death, the wolf that this time is the savior of the defenseless girl, who is transformed into a wild force in search of revenge.

For lovers of violence and bloody scenes, the film offers a wild feast, so that we can enjoy each of its frames, from the crudest, to the most unreal, like the appearance of a group of men playing pinball, while the two protagonists face each other in a struggle of persecution.

The monsters in the film are real, they are two psychopaths who devote themselves to capturing victims, who disappear forever and of whom nothing will ever be heard of again. Only the horrors recorded in the camera will remain, so the predator will delight in every sight, being moved by every image. The true creatures to be feared are in human form and have no limit of cruelty.

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The filmmaker, who has dedicated his entire career to comics, sought out Belgian director of photography Joachim Philippe to set the right tone for his cruel fable. A work that stands out, especially in the scenes that take place in the forest and, of course, in those that occur in the final climax. The images composed by Joachim Philippe are beautiful, where the red and blue tones stand out with intensity. They are very striking images that add intensity to the story. The director of photography had already demonstrated his talent with the photography of the film The Faithful Son of 2017

This Belgian-French co-production was presented in the official section of the Sitges Film Festival in 2020 and received a majority of positive reviews.

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The film is a fierce battle between two characters, Eva and the Psychopathic Man, who are played in an excellent manner by two actors who are each perfect in the role they have been given. They also live their own acting battle.

Belgian actress Lucie Debay plays Eve, the fragile woman whose life will change when she is kidnapped by two psychopaths who don't know what they will do. Fear, despair and terror take hold of her. But she will have to face the facts and draw strength to survive. From weak to strong, from victim to hunter, the character's evolution will be exciting and brutal.

The actress had worked for the director before, in a short film, she has worked in different films, between Belgium and France, she is focused on her career. She is an actress I didn't know and I loved her work in this film. I will look for some of her previous work, for example, the film Un Francais, from the year 2015, I hope to get it. I will also keep an eye on the future projects of this actress, who has left me satisfied with her character and has a peculiar beauty that attracts me.

-Arieh Worthalter is in charge of playing Handsome Guy, the brutal psychopath who will transform Eve's life into a nightmare. His character is absolutely unpleasant, a merciless madman, who will provide us with delirious scenes, with an almost absurd madness, but necessary, nothing will be able to stop him from capturing his prey, he feels pleasure in torturing and killing. The actor offers a magnificent performance, making this villain, who is completely crazy, credible.

The actor is known in Belgian cinema and in France, where he has participated in many films. Among the best known are Les Anarchistes, Marie Curi, Bastille Day, Girl, Sympathy for the Devil and Razzia, a film produced in Morocco. In addition to his work in the French television series Tranfers. The actor has a perfect physique to play evil characters.

The actress Simone Milsdochter has a small role in the film, is the woman who appears in the prologue telling the story of the woman and the wolves to his son Jeremy. Later, she will appear in other scenes, accompanied by her son, who is already a teenager. This actress is best known in Holland, where she has focused her entire artistic career. And an actor called Ciaran O'Brien, totally unknown, is the one who plays Andy, the psychopath's partner, who is manipulated and is a fool who does everything the fearsome villain tells him to do.

Trailer

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POSTER

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