Canetoad
The Prodigal Toad
HMaM member of the Month, July 2006
Cry Havoc! And let slip the cats of war.
Posts: 2,868
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Sheitan
Sept 4, 2006 17:40:05 GMT -5
Post by Canetoad on Sept 4, 2006 17:40:05 GMT -5
Sheitan Rating TBC
1.5 stars
Sheitan (which is apparently Persian for Satan) just re-affirms my belief that the French produce some truly great cinema, but they cannot do horror. After Alexandre Aja’s much over-rated High Tension, comes Sheitan, another Gallic attempt to be too clever by half that fails dismally. The basic premise involves a group of young friends who leave a night-club with a couple of young nubile French girls in tow, and end up at a remote farmhouse run by a demented shepherd. For a start the characters are almost universally unappealing, so you couldn’t care what horrors await them. There are highly derivative attempts to build a sense of unease with weird villagers and a bizarre household, but all this achieves is a sense of confusion rather than any suspense. Suffice to say what is supposed to be a night of nooky turns into something to do with devil-worship, and excuse for a couple of clunky ‘gross-out’ scenes. In short, while it tries hard – and there is a lot of positive ‘’buzz’’ about this in some quarters of the net – for mine Sheitan just ends up being trying. Don’t bother.
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