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Them (Ils)

Them (Ils) (2006)

tomatometer

60

Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 53
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 21

Suspenseful and tense from start to finish, the French horror film Them proves that a lack of gore doesn't mean a dearth of scares.

47

Average Rating: 5.6/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 9

Suspenseful and tense from start to finish, the French horror film Them proves that a lack of gore doesn't mean a dearth of scares.

audience

60

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 10,043

My Rating

Movie Info

Co-writers and directors David Moreau and Xavier Palaud's French-language horror picture Them take audiences on a ride of sheer terror as a couple fight for their life when an assault on their home turns deadly. The story opens with the homicide of two Romanians -- a woman and her young daughter -- who crash their car along a rural road and are promptly butchered by a shadowy figure. Meanwhile, in Bucharest, schoolteacher Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy) climbs into her car and drives to the isolated

Mar 25, 2008

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All Critics (54) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (21) | DVD (7)

First-time directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud have crafted a highly effective horror film that combines a plausible narrative with accomplished use of sound and image.

January 3, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Moreau and Palud play on the way our minds fill in the gaps of the unknown and the very primal fear of things going bump in the night.

September 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
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A nerve-wracking finale, a 30-minute chase through the house's catacombs, followed by a closing image that will chill you to the bone.

September 14, 2007 | Comment (1)
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Those who like their horror served up neat, no chaser, can safely belly up to Them. It is a pared-down French thriller that trades splatter and gore for tense efficiency.

September 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
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Them is Haneke on training wheels.

August 31, 2007 Full Review Source: Boston Globe
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The fright is crafted well enough, but the twist at the end calls for more originality than filmmakers David Moreau and Xavier Palud wield.

August 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Lean, mean and will leave your underpants anything but clean.

November 3, 2012 Full Review Source: TheShiznit.co.uk
TheShiznit.co.uk

...a sporadically affecting yet undeniably uneven exercise in horror.

November 1, 2009 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews
Reel Film Reviews

A disturbing DV-shot horror thriller.

August 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Mostly an exercise in frustration.

February 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness
Lessons of Darkness

Definitely one of the best horror films I've seen in a while, and plays to the key of terror and our imagination provoking enough imagery without the director having to do much of anything...

March 26, 2008 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

...this is Hostel for everyone who hates Eli Roth's hirsute bravado, High Tension for everyone who found that experiment in terror more 'haute' than horrifying

March 25, 2008 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com
DVDTalk.com

You can always expect a little embellishment for any horror film or thriller that claims to be based on a true story or actual events. This one, however, doesn't sell it.

January 10, 2008 Full Review Source: MovieCrypt.com
MovieCrypt.com

The final 20 minutes contain some of the best, uncontrived twists of any post-Sixth Sense American suspense film, but there is a good reason for that, as the co-directors reveal with a shocking epilogue.

October 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Las Vegas CityLife

This freshman effort from the French team of David Moreau and Xavier Palud would rate an A in film school. But that doesn't mean it's worth seeing.

October 12, 2007

The essentially nonexistent characterizations do little to help matters.

September 22, 2007 Full Review Source: MovieMartyr.com | Comment (1)
MovieMartyr.com

Those who don't need all that graphic content to be jolted and unnerved may find a few things to like here.

September 13, 2007 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

It's refreshing to see the French finally producing a worthy entry in the horror genre.

September 11, 2007 Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews
rec.arts.movies.reviews

Audience Reviews for Them (Ils)

A horror film but not. When the ending hits it makes the terror so much more shocking in my opinion.
May 11, 2008
jmanard52

Super Reviewer

From the opening kill sequence, Them sets up a rule that it will maintain straight through its 76 minute running time: the ability for the victims to see their attackers is limited to the sides of the frame. The rule works to set up suspense, but in a practical standpoint, it creates a ridiculous amount of illogical sequences where any real person, including the blind, could see the killers coming from a mile away.
Writer/directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud have decided to stand apart from their extremely gory French horror art house siblings, opting for a more Hitchcockian approach where very little violence happens onscreen and most of the film's suspense comes from the long, stretched out periods of silence before the onslaught. This is perhaps the film's greatest strength, and its first 40 minutes continue the promise of a unique, edge of your seat home invasion thriller. And then as the final act slowly approaches, things go awry.
Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) and Lucas (Michael Cohen) play a young married couple new to Bucharest. They find a secluded home where they can have peace and quiet. Problem: Who in their right mind buys a big house in the middle of nowhere especially when they're new to the country? Maybe they have their reasons, but the film never explains why they decide to do this, and I can't relate to it because anyone I know who's moved to Toronto from another country has bought a place in the heart of the city, or as close to their work as possible. Without any reason, this secluded farm house seems too much like a horror movie cliche.
But forget about that. Home invasion movies almost always involve busted phone lines, power outages and a chase into the woods, and Them is no different. As mentioned before, the killers are rarely seen onscreen, yet they're everywhere and anywhere. But unless you're in a horror movie, I don't know how you can stand alone in the middle of the woods, quietly look around, and not hear someone come up behind you. Leaves and twigs make a lot of noise. The fight or flight paradigm that Clementine and Lucas find themselves in becomes more of a fight against physics and logic. I can't see how killers can know every nook and cranny of a house better than the tenants. I really feel for these characters because the script has found every contrived way to stack the odds against their chance of survival, so Them becomes more of an exercise in plot manipulation than minimalist horror.
January 11, 2012
MovieGeek13

Super Reviewer

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