Frontiers (After Dark Horrorfest 2007 Review)

Plot
A gang of young thieves flee Paris during the violent riots in the aftermath of a political election, only to hole up at an Inn run by neo-Nazis, who have plans on creating a new Aryan master race.

Jason's Thoughts
After finishing up the eight 2007 After Dark Horrorfest movies, I thought it was time for me to move on to another movie marathon.  In looking at the movie list for the third Horrorfest series, I stumbled across Frontiers, a movie that I somehow overlooked as it was supposed to be part of the 2007 series.

Having watched the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, I somewhat have an understanding about the MPAA and how movies are rated.  Since there are no set rules and standards, it pretty much is a judgment call up to movie reviewer. For some reason or another, Frontiers was given an NC-17 rating, which is why the movie was removed from the After Dark Horrorfest lineup and released to a very limited theatrical showing on its own.

It is too bad that it wasn't part of the original eight as Frontiers is actually better than a majority of the movies that were part of the series.  It kind of reminded me of a mishmash of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hostel, with subtle High Tension French flare and a Nazi twist to it.  Yes, the movie was subtitled and at times took away from what was going on, but the level of gore and violence made it well worth all of the extra reading.

Frontiers really went places I didn't think it was going to go.  At first I thought it was going to try to make a political statement as the beginning of the movie is sheer chaos during an election.  The movie then takes a turn when the characters evade the police and find themselves inside a strange hostel that houses an even stranger family.  All of a sudden, being captured by the police would have been a better option.

Yes, Frontiers heavily borrows ideas from the aforementioned movies, but they are all movies I hold dear in my heart, and I can look past that aspect when it is done well.  Plus, it has some inventive gore and includes Achilles tendon severance, which will get me to cringe every time I see it.

Once it was all said and done, though, what I really wanted to know is what caused it to get an NC-17 rating.  Sure there was an enormous amount of blood, dead bodies and even some cannibalism, but it didn't pull out too many new tricks that would have crossed the line.  I could see areas where they could have taken it in a different and more disgusting manner, but they pulled in the reigns and didn't go down those roads.  

I consider myself a horror movie aficionado and I don't think any one part of Frontiers warranted a NC-17 rating.  Maybe I have seen too many horror movies and have become desensitized to the brutal violence, but I will keep on watching them, especially the French ones if they keep this style of horror going.

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