The Pack (La Meute) Reviews
WrenchLT
Super Reviewer
February 7, 2011
The DVD artwork promised much, but to be honest I was left a little underwhelmed by this one. The whole set-up is fairly routine and something that's been done a few times recently in the new wave of French shockers featuring backwoods families. The real draw of the film would be the 'Pack' itself as advertised but even they left me a bit disappointed. They show up fairly late-on in the film and they do very little, despite providing the best moments of the movie. Not a terrible film by any means, the characters are an entertaining crazy bunch and there's some nice gory moments to be enjoyed. Just don't get your hopes up too much about this one though.
ScoopOnline
Super Reviewer
February 8, 2011
Each to their own. I really wouldn`t recommend it.
Francisco G.
Super Reviewer
October 5, 2011
There's nothing really new here but it still manages to be entertaining, funny and with some well thought surprises and sequences. And no, not the ending one, which was just plain stupid and unjustifiable.
John2223
Super Reviewer
April 10, 2011
"The Pack" is a French movie with a irregular story. It is very entertaining and engaging in the first half, filled with intrigue and a second segment very strange, murky, illogical and even boring.
January 4, 2013
Pass, unless you have more patience than I do.
Um, yeah...so I went into this thinking that the PACK in question referred to werewolves or something fo that nature, so when I ended up with a bunch of horseshit about cannibalistic ghouls that a diner owner kidnaps travelers to feed, well, you can imagine how little I cared about at that point.
Pass, unless you have more patience than I do.
April 25, 2012
Most of the time I really appreciate the French horror genre ("Frontiers," "Martyrs," and "Inside" immediately come to mind), but "The Pack" is hardly blockbuster. Charlotte is supposed to be this kick butt chick but cries most of the time, the monsters aren't scary in the slightest, and the pacing of the film is ridiculous. The first third was good, but after that it just dragged on until the ending came and I didn't even care.
Charlotte picks up hitchhiker Max, and they head to a local diner in a small French town. Max goes to the bathroom and doesn't return, so Charlotte goes in search for him. What she finds is something she totally doesn't suspect - a family who kills people to feed a race of underground dwelling monsters. Now she has to find a way to fight back or become lunch for the creatures.
Most of the time I really appreciate the French horror genre ("Frontiers," "Martyrs," and "Inside" immediately come to mind), but "The Pack" is hardly blockbuster. Charlotte is supposed to be this kick butt chick but cries most of the time, the monsters aren't scary in the slightest, and the pacing of the film is ridiculous. The first third was good, but after that it just dragged on until the ending came and I didn't even care.
April 4, 2013
A little over halfway into The Pack, Franck Richard's debut film, it changes from a generic, mindless torture porn film to "what the hell am I watching?". Had it stayed there, I think, it could have been at least half of something special-but instead after that first bout of WTFery, the film goes right back to mindless, derivative joylessness, and I started hating it all over again. It never recovered.
The movie begins with Charlotte Massot (Brotherhood of the Wolf's Émilie Dequenne) driving through a snowy wasteland, where she encounters chilly hitchhiker Max (Stella's Benjamin Biolay). They stop at a diner to grab some coffee and warm up, and find themselves menaced by a trio of bikers who are chased off by the diner's shotgun-wielding owner (Micmacs' Yolande Moreau). However, when Max disappears into thin air after a quick trip to the restroom, Charlotte goes looking for him-and finds that things are not at all as they seem...
...all of which seems very promising, but as I said in the opening paragraph, things go downhill very quickly from there until the scene where you suddenly realize what the title of the movie has to do with anything. You get that amazing WHAT...WHAT moment and start thinking "hey, there might actually be a movie underneath all the stupid!" But... no. I wish I could tell you that one scene, and the generally-decent acting ability displayed by both Dequenne and Moreau, makes this worth watching, but again... no. **
La Meute (The Pack) (Franck Richard, 2010)
A little over halfway into The Pack, Franck Richard's debut film, it changes from a generic, mindless torture porn film to "what the hell am I watching?". Had it stayed there, I think, it could have been at least half of something special-but instead after that first bout of WTFery, the film goes right back to mindless, derivative joylessness, and I started hating it all over again. It never recovered.
The movie begins with Charlotte Massot (Brotherhood of the Wolf's Émilie Dequenne) driving through a snowy wasteland, where she encounters chilly hitchhiker Max (Stella's Benjamin Biolay). They stop at a diner to grab some coffee and warm up, and find themselves menaced by a trio of bikers who are chased off by the diner's shotgun-wielding owner (Micmacs' Yolande Moreau). However, when Max disappears into thin air after a quick trip to the restroom, Charlotte goes looking for him-and finds that things are not at all as they seem...
...all of which seems very promising, but as I said in the opening paragraph, things go downhill very quickly from there until the scene where you suddenly realize what the title of the movie has to do with anything. You get that amazing WHAT...WHAT moment and start thinking "hey, there might actually be a movie underneath all the stupid!" But... no. I wish I could tell you that one scene, and the generally-decent acting ability displayed by both Dequenne and Moreau, makes this worth watching, but again... no. **
caroban s.
February 11, 2013
it is cool, but clumsy
May 24, 2012
Didn't really get into it too much. There was some twists and turns but nothing to save it from the stupid and confusing plot.
April 29, 2012
Kind of fun...almost like two separate horror flicks but really picks up the last half of the film. Worth a watch if you like French horror.
April 24, 2012
Had a LOT of potential at the beginning, but, as it moved forward, one could see the filmmaker losing his money. No explanation of the LAMEST looking zombies that resembled Gollum. Were they miners? Were they some kind of demon? We never know. So much unexplained. It seems the director ran out of money, threw his hands up, and just wanted to finish the movie without details.
October 6, 2011
There's nothing really new here but it still manages to be entertaining, funny and with some well thought surprises and sequences. And no, not the ending one, which was just plain stupid and unjustifiable.
Francisco G.
Super Reviewer
October 5, 2011
There's nothing really new here but it still manages to be entertaining, funny and with some well thought surprises and sequences. And no, not the ending one, which was just plain stupid and unjustifiable.
Chris S.
October 3, 2011
Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne) is traveling cross-country without any real destination in mind. She attracts the attention of a biker gang and picks up a hitchhiker named Max (Benjamin Biolay) to throw them off her trail. Charlotte and Max eventually end up at La Spack, a dilapidated shack that's been modified into a roadside restaurant. Their paths cross with the biker gang once again and a bit of a scuffle breaks out. The fight is broken up by the woman who runs La Spack (Yolande Moreau) and Max disappears after going into the bathroom and never coming back out. Charlotte then finds herself trapped in a cage after snooping around in places she shouldn't. Their captors then make themselves known and begin preparing Charlotte and another prisoner as meals for a horde of cannibalistic guests.
I had this feeling of anxiousness and excitement as The Pack began. A good portion of the French horror films mentioned in this review were a little disappointing, but the interest is still there. When this genre does deliver, it's something special. The Pack was odd right from the start. There's a lot of joking around in the beginning of the film and a ton of dialogue about sex. Nearly all of the characters have bizarre quirks; Charlotte doesn't seem to want anything to do with men, Max is emotionless and cold, the La Spack owner is obviously up to something, and Chinaski (Philippe Nahon), an old man who calls himself a sheriff of sorts, walks a bike around, says, "Hi ho Silver" to it and makes horse noises repeatedly, and runs around in a "I f*** on the first date" T-shirt. It's difficult to get a read on where The Pack is headed when it has elements of comedy, mystery, and thriller as it gets going.
But The Pack eventually goes down the horror path though and mostly sticks to it. Its music is fairly haunting as it jumps back and forth between sounding like a warped lullaby and trying to seduce you with grungy and distorted guitars. The first scene at La Spack sticks out, as well. You hear nothing but The Twilight Zone pinball machine noises in the background while sloppy takedowns and yelling fill up the foreground during the melee between Charlotte and Max and the biker gang. You also probably won't ever hear, "John Wayne," without thinking of this film after viewing it. But once these creatures are introduced is when things get interesting and everything takes a turn into horror territory. Imagine the crawlers from The Descent breeding with Voldemort from Harry Potter and you have a pretty good idea of what these suckers look like. They're bloodthirsty and their hunger seems to be unquenchable. The only downside is that there's so little of them. The entire film is a slow burn to the last twenty minutes or so. While the finale is the most intriguing aspect of The Pack, it doesn't fully deliver. The ending is really peculiar; not overly good or bad but unusual. Nothing is really resolved or fully explained. And somehow nobody who picks up a gun in this film has ever heard of a headshot. The Pack does nothing more than whet your appetite and make you wish it had more to offer.
The Pack does have its moments. It's at the very least intriguing from start to finish and has some pretty fantastic make-up effects. There's also some outstanding gore featured whether it involves a severed head, exploding appendages, or a major organ being ripped from someone's chest and fed upon. Fans of the genre should still check this out. The downside is that The Pack is the weakest French horror film to date and is mostly kind of forgettable by the time you finish it. Despite its fair share of dismemberment, bloodshed, and excellent make-up, The Pack never really gets beyond mediocre territory.
French horror is a genre that's grown exponentially in the past six years or so, at least when it comes to what's been making its way to U.S. shores. High Tension seemed to open the doors of interest and delivered levels of violence and gore most modern theatrically released American horror had been lacking up until that point. Inside, Frontier(s), Martyrs, Mutants, and The Horde followed in the coming years and continued to get praise from horror fanatics and gore hounds. The thing about French horror is that there are no limitations. It has no boundaries. That's the main reason fans love it as much as they do. While The Pack can be considered part of the same group as these films, it isn't nearly as powerful as any of the films mentioned.
Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne) is traveling cross-country without any real destination in mind. She attracts the attention of a biker gang and picks up a hitchhiker named Max (Benjamin Biolay) to throw them off her trail. Charlotte and Max eventually end up at La Spack, a dilapidated shack that's been modified into a roadside restaurant. Their paths cross with the biker gang once again and a bit of a scuffle breaks out. The fight is broken up by the woman who runs La Spack (Yolande Moreau) and Max disappears after going into the bathroom and never coming back out. Charlotte then finds herself trapped in a cage after snooping around in places she shouldn't. Their captors then make themselves known and begin preparing Charlotte and another prisoner as meals for a horde of cannibalistic guests.
I had this feeling of anxiousness and excitement as The Pack began. A good portion of the French horror films mentioned in this review were a little disappointing, but the interest is still there. When this genre does deliver, it's something special. The Pack was odd right from the start. There's a lot of joking around in the beginning of the film and a ton of dialogue about sex. Nearly all of the characters have bizarre quirks; Charlotte doesn't seem to want anything to do with men, Max is emotionless and cold, the La Spack owner is obviously up to something, and Chinaski (Philippe Nahon), an old man who calls himself a sheriff of sorts, walks a bike around, says, "Hi ho Silver" to it and makes horse noises repeatedly, and runs around in a "I f*** on the first date" T-shirt. It's difficult to get a read on where The Pack is headed when it has elements of comedy, mystery, and thriller as it gets going.
But The Pack eventually goes down the horror path though and mostly sticks to it. Its music is fairly haunting as it jumps back and forth between sounding like a warped lullaby and trying to seduce you with grungy and distorted guitars. The first scene at La Spack sticks out, as well. You hear nothing but The Twilight Zone pinball machine noises in the background while sloppy takedowns and yelling fill up the foreground during the melee between Charlotte and Max and the biker gang. You also probably won't ever hear, "John Wayne," without thinking of this film after viewing it. But once these creatures are introduced is when things get interesting and everything takes a turn into horror territory. Imagine the crawlers from The Descent breeding with Voldemort from Harry Potter and you have a pretty good idea of what these suckers look like. They're bloodthirsty and their hunger seems to be unquenchable. The only downside is that there's so little of them. The entire film is a slow burn to the last twenty minutes or so. While the finale is the most intriguing aspect of The Pack, it doesn't fully deliver. The ending is really peculiar; not overly good or bad but unusual. Nothing is really resolved or fully explained. And somehow nobody who picks up a gun in this film has ever heard of a headshot. The Pack does nothing more than whet your appetite and make you wish it had more to offer.
The Pack does have its moments. It's at the very least intriguing from start to finish and has some pretty fantastic make-up effects. There's also some outstanding gore featured whether it involves a severed head, exploding appendages, or a major organ being ripped from someone's chest and fed upon. Fans of the genre should still check this out. The downside is that The Pack is the weakest French horror film to date and is mostly kind of forgettable by the time you finish it. Despite its fair share of dismemberment, bloodshed, and excellent make-up, The Pack never really gets beyond mediocre territory.
June 24, 2011
Good creature design and a decent start get trumped by a half-assed script and confusing ending.
Chris
May 10, 2011
Starts interesting but as soon as la meute arrives the film falls into 0815 trash.
