When Summer Vacation Turns into a Slasher Symphony
There’s something almost magical about Among the Living (Aux yeux des vivants), Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s gloriously twisted 2014 French horror film. Magical, that is, if your definition of magic involves blood, trauma, and Béatrice Dalle glaring at you like she knows your worst secret.
Maury and Bustillo, the duo behind Inside and Livid, return here with a story that feels like Stand by Me wandered into a Rob Zombie nightmare, got lost, and decided to stay. It’s a coming-of-age story with chainsaws, a fairy tale soaked in motor oil and bad decisions. It’s also very, very French—which is to say, beautifully shot, existentially bleak, and casually perverse.
The Boys Are (Mostly) Alright
Our story begins with three adolescent delinquents—Tom (Zacharie Chasseriaud), Dan (Damien Ferdel), and Victor (Théo Fernandez)—skipping the last day of school to embark on an adventure that will make you nostalgic for your own youth, assuming your childhood also involved breaking and entering and stumbling across a man in a clown mask dragging a chained woman.
The trio are lovable in that reckless, prepubescent way: full of bravado, bad language, and the mistaken belief that nothing truly bad can happen before puberty ends. They sneak cigarettes, talk about girls, and wander into places adults have the good sense to avoid.
Unfortunately, their exploration of the abandoned Blackwood Studios turns into an audition tape for a French remake of Deliverance. There, they encounter a masked man and his prisoner—a moment that starts as a horrifying discovery and quickly escalates into an “oh-no-they-saw-us” scenario.
They escape. Barely. But the nightmare doesn’t end there, because Isaac Faucheur (Francis Renaud), the sadistic father of the masked man, isn’t the type to let witnesses live happily ever after. He decides to hunt the boys down, along with his disturbingly obedient, deformed son, Klarence (Fabien Jegoudez). The stage is set for a blood-soaked revenge tale that somehow manages to be both terrifying and heartbreakingly poetic.
Meet the Faucheurs: Dysfunctional Doesn’t Begin to Cover It
If the Addams Family were raised on a diet of raw meat and nihilism, they might resemble the Faucheurs. Isaac is a seething volcano of parental malpractice, a man whose idea of father-son bonding involves home invasion and light torture. His partner in crime, Klarence, wears a clown mask and moves with the jittery menace of someone who’s spent too much time listening to broken music boxes.
And then there’s Jeanne Faucheur (the incomparable Béatrice Dalle), a woman whose brief but unforgettable presence feels like the ghost of French horror itself—beautiful, damaged, and capable of eviscerating you with a look. Dalle’s face is practically a national monument to menace at this point, and she uses it here like a weapon.
The family dynamic is less “domestic drama” and more “psychological case study that ends in multiple fatalities.” You get the sense that if Freud watched this movie, he’d close his notebook and go lie down for a while.
The Tone: Amblin Meets Apocalypse
What makes Among the Living so fascinating is how deftly it dances between tones. One minute, it’s a sunlit adventure about rebellious kids exploring forbidden spaces. The next, it’s a grim descent into violence and madness.
Maury and Bustillo clearly worship at the altar of 1980s Americana—there are shades of The Goonies, Stand by Me, and IT (minus the cosmic turtle). The nostalgic lens of boyhood curiosity is used to lure you into a false sense of security. You start to believe this might be a sentimental story about friendship, growing up, and maybe learning a lesson.
Then the film punches you in the gut with a crowbar made of nihilism and says, “Bienvenue en enfer.”
The filmmakers never forget the human element beneath the horror. For every scream, there’s a flicker of innocence lost; for every dismemberment, there’s a reminder that growing up means confronting the monsters—especially when they live next door.
The Violence: Bloody Beautiful
Let’s be clear: this is a French horror movie, which means the violence isn’t just gory—it’s artistic. There’s a painterly quality to the carnage, a gruesome choreography that feels disturbingly elegant. Blood here isn’t a gimmick; it’s a narrative language.
Maury and Bustillo use violence like punctuation—sharp, shocking, and utterly deliberate. When a blade falls or a life ends, it feels earned (in the most horrifying way possible). It’s horror that respects its audience enough to actually unsettle them.
That said, this isn’t torture porn. It’s atmospheric, deliberate, and emotionally grounded. The gore amplifies the tragedy rather than replacing it.
Still, if you’re squeamish, bring a comfort snack—or maybe just some therapy vouchers.
The Direction: When Horror Has Style
Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo have always been masters of visual dread. In Among the Living, they take the ghost-town aesthetics of Livid and fuse them with the gritty realism of Inside. The result is a film that looks simultaneously dreamlike and grounded—a surreal postcard from hell.
The abandoned film studio setting is genius. It’s both literal and metaphorical: a place of faded dreams, rotting illusions, and echoes of cinematic ghosts. The directors use space masterfully—every frame feels haunted, every hallway a trap.
The camera glides through the ruins like a curious spirit, creating a sense of unease even in the quiet moments. The contrast between daylight innocence and nighttime terror is particularly effective. You can practically smell the decay when the sun goes down.
And the sound design? Equal parts nightmare fuel and ASMR for masochists. The creak of floorboards, the whisper of chains, the muffled cries from unseen victims—it’s a symphony of dread.
The Humor: Gallows, Meet Giggle
Dark humor seeps through the film like a bloodstain through linen. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but there’s an undercurrent of absurdity that keeps the horror from suffocating you.
There’s irony in how mundane the adults are compared to the evil lurking nearby. The police dismiss the kids’ story because, well, they’re kids. Parents bicker about school and curfews while a family of psychopaths is out there rehearsing for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The French Edition.
Maury and Bustillo understand that horror and humor share DNA. Both rely on timing, surprise, and human folly. You don’t know whether to laugh or scream—and often, you do both.
Performances: The Innocent and the Damned
The young trio of actors carry the film with raw, believable performances. They’re not polished Hollywood kids; they’re messy, flawed, and painfully real. Their camaraderie feels lived-in, their fear genuine.
Francis Renaud as Isaac radiates menace like secondhand smoke. He’s terrifying not because he’s loud, but because he’s methodical—a man who’s accepted his own monstrosity. Fabien Jegoudez as Klarence gives us one of horror’s great modern bogeymen: pitiful, grotesque, and chillingly loyal.
And then there’s Béatrice Dalle. Even in her brief scenes, she dominates the screen like a gothic deity. She could read a phone book and still make it sound like a curse.
The Message: Monsters Are Made, Not Born
Beneath the blood and terror, Among the Living is a story about cycles of violence. The sins of the parents, the corruption of innocence, the failure of authority—it’s all there, wrapped in barbed wire and nostalgia.
It’s a movie that dares to suggest that childhood doesn’t end when we grow up; it ends when the world stops protecting us.
Final Verdict: Stand by Me, but Make It Murder
Among the Living is a haunting, beautifully crafted nightmare—a film that proves horror can be both brutal and lyrical. It’s a slasher with a soul, a fairy tale that bleeds, and a coming-of-age story where not everyone gets to come of age.
Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo remind us why French horror remains unmatched when it comes to blending artistry and agony. It’s scary, funny, sad, and—most importantly—alive.
★★★★☆ (4 out of 5)
A stylish, savage ode to childhood and chaos. Among the Living is the kind of horror film that doesn’t just get under your skin—it redecorates the place while it’s there. Bring popcorn, courage, and maybe a therapy appointment for afterward.
