Unrelenting scarefest Infested is a French arachnophobic twist on Attack the Block

Infested. // Courtesy Shudder

Across decades, creepy crawlies and arachnids have given audiences a reliable dose of heebie-jeebies, whether it’s giant ants in Them, eight-legged pests in Arachnophobia or mounds of cockroaches erupting from a human body in Creepshow. Now they’re ready to strike again in Sébastien Vaniček’s feature debut Infested, a film that successfully finds new ways to make viewers squirm in their seats.

Kaleb (Theo Christine) lives in a huge low-income apartment building in Paris with his sister and stacked floors of neighbors. He spends his days operating a designer shoe racket from a storage locker in the building’s basement and nursing his far-off, not-quite-abandoned dream of one day owning an exotic animal sanctuary. Kaleb’s a sensitive kid under his street-smart exterior, and that care extends to both the animals he keeps and the neighbors he’s grown up with.

While picking up a gift for a neighbor’s going-away party at a neighborhood convenience store, Kaleb spots a rare spider in the owner’s backroom and has to have it. When he arrives home tries to give it a temporary domicile inside a shoe box. Of course, this is a horror movie. You know what happens next — Kaleb’s good intentions set off a chain reaction that puts dozens of people’s lives in danger.

Vaniček’s film mashes up Arachnophobia with Joe Cornish’s great Attack the Block, turning the building into a vibrant city of its own, peopled with complex characters and odd nooks and crannies that we come to appreciate before everything goes haywire. Among other things, Infested is a commentary on how the cops treat low-income people, even when those people are victims, and Vaniček does a good job of courting our sympathies so that when the spider egg sac hits the fan, we feel the injustice (and bone-deep horror) of the situation.

The fateful day that Kaleb’s spider gets loose and…fruitfully multiplies, Vaniček drags out the inevitable beastie reveal by digging into the residents’ lives unfolding around it.

Local tough guy Moussa (Mahamadou Sanagre) wants Kaleb to deliver his overdue shoe order. Wannabe neighborhood watch jackass Gilles (Emmanuel Bonami) accuses Kaleb of dealing drugs. Kaleb’s sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko) has invited her friend Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) and Lila’s boyfriend (and Kaleb’s ex-bestie) Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield), to help renovate their late mom’s apartment to sell. While Kaleb bellyaches about them ruining the bathroom, his knucklehead pal Mathys (Jérôme Niel, the film’s MVP) helps take down tile.

Vaniček invests us in this community and the architecture around it (you’ll quickly note Chekov’s gross basement, Chekov’s shitty light switch, Chekov’s parking garage, etc.) before introducing us to the stellar effects work from Thierry Onillon and Léo Ewald. These aren’t cheesy b-movie spiders. These suckers are realistic, fast, and nasty. Anyone with a fear of spiders might check out at first sight, but when you can get even the toughest people in the room to jump (as many did during the film’s local premiere at Panic Fest), that’s when you know something special is unfolding.

Infested. // Courtesy Shudder

Vaniček’s clear vision and sure hand (not to mention go-for-broke approach to onscreen ickiness) has made Infested a hit at numerous film festivals over the past year. It’s also netted him a gig directing a future Evil Dead installment, as Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert have turned that series into a proving ground for up-and-coming genre filmmakers. 

Infested is an easy movie to champion, with a near-perfect balance of tone, scares, humor, and gore. It’s available on Shudder and VOD today, and worth seeing and appreciating what Vaniček’s already up to now, both as an appetizer for what’s to come and as a genuinely impressive first feature.