MadS

MadS
Starring Milton Riche, Lucille Guillaume, Laurie Pavy, Yovel Lewkowski
Directed by David Moreau

Movies with a gimmick almost always fail because it leans too much into that gimmick than provide a thought-provoking story. However, sometimes both the gimmick and the story work in tandem, such is the case with the 2019 Sam Mendes-directed film "1917," a film supposedly shot in one continuous take (although it wasn't, but the editing was so precise it made you feel like it was). Now the horror genre is playing the game with "MadS," a French film that is also supposedly shot in one continuous take centering on three French youths as they experience what possibly could be their last night alive, and although it didn't resonate with me as much as it did others, it was still an unnerving tale.

Romain (Milton Richie) is a spoiled teen who does drugs and is basically an all-around not nice guy, when he picks up a girl on the side of the road suffering from some sort of illness. Worried that he could've been infected himself, he attends a birthday party with his girlfriend Anais (Laurie Pavy) and their friend Julia (Lucille Guillaume), when all hell breaks loose - the infection has spread, and the government will stop at nothing to contain it before it becomes an epidemic, including killing anyone they think could've been infected.

Basically, "MadS" is "28 Days Later" in France, a movie that features fast-running zombie-like people who become infected with a mysterious illness that causes them to lose mental functions and act out in animalistic ways. The film was indeed shot in one continuous take according to the director, and to that end I could believe it because I didn't notice any specific parts that could've been edited. This is no simple feat, and I applaud director David Moreau and his crew for accomplishing this amazing feat. It makes for a very tight, claustrophobic movie centering on a few main characters as they see the world falling apart around them, and after the horror starts it doesn't let up.

The movie balances its story between the three main leads, seamlessly flowing from one story to the other in a purely chaotic way, that best describes the film as a whole: chaotic, but in a good way. Milton Riche's Romain is an insufferable spoiled brat with daddy's car and daddy's house, and won't let a bleeding woman ruin his night of partying, but there's also a sense of dread as he worries he was infected as well, and seeing Riche's expressions speaks volumes.

The story then goes to his girlfriend Anais, played with gusto by Laurie Pavy as she frantically runs through the town being hunted by the government because she was in contact with Romain and others who could've been infected, as she goes through her own transformation as well. Pavy is intense with her performance and fully dives into the outlandish premise giving it her all.

Then it goes to Anais's friend Julia, played by Lucille Guillaume, who is the best performer of the three. She is stuck with dealing with the outbreak and trying to get to her ailing mother, while also being hunted by the gun-wielding government officials out to contain the virus. You sense her dread, fear, and concern in her expressions as she drives through the deserted streets culminating in an intense final scene in an apartment complex that'll stick with you long after it ends.

Maybe I was expecting more blood and gore, because this is a French film and I've become accustomed to having their films be more exploitative and gory than American ones, but "MadS" has surprisingly small amounts of gore, probably because it was done in one take so it'd be difficult to really pull off anything like that. Still, in a sense, I was expecting a bit more than what I got - and while that's not the movie's fault, it's something that stuck with me after it ended. I won't say I was bored, but I was just expecting a bit more.

The Score: A-