Infested (2023)

A trio of best friends decide to risk their lives to capture some man-eating spidernators in the desert. Why, you ask? Money, of course! These suckers will sell for as much as 20€ in very exclusive backrooms of select convenience stores in French 'burbs! Sorry, les bûrbs. Of course, you have to pay the seller and the middlemen, arrange and pay for freight, etc., but still - a euro, baby! Oh yeah!

So in this desert, right. It's daytime, which we know because the sun tells us high noon and the screen brightness is about 50%. HDR, baby! This makes sense, because almost everything in real life is brighter than the desert under a cloudless sky at noon. What do you mean, what? Like, a kitchen in France, or the red overhead lights in a bathroom, of course! What do you mean, who has red overhead lights in their bathroom, shut up!

Okay, so anyway, these friends' quest to make all the euro belong to us by way of spider backfires when one of the little guys smacks one of brave spider hunters over the head, making him topple over and start screaming uncontrollably. But fear not - one of his friends grabs his machete, summons all his friendliness, and hacks him to death while looking very stern, heck, even angry. Why did he bring a machete to the desert where's there literally no shrubbery, you ask? Well duh, obviously this is the kind of machete we all carry around for emergencies in case one of our friends should start freaking out and needs a good hacking. At least I do. Totally normal where I come from. How else would you make someone stop freaking out?

Well, good news, now the two other guys could make upwards of TWO euros - EACH! Ka-ching!

And this is where we know this movie is gonna be AWESOME, and we definitely shouldn't consider turning it off. And if we were even the least bit in doubt, perhaps the best music score in recent film history starts rapping over the awesome spidery credits. We're sold.

Okay, so now we're in France, right. And a not at all annoying protagonist appears. Not unlike Jesus, he is. I mean, you remember like how Jesus would talk all the time? Like how you would wonder if he ever took a breath or if he simply absorbed oxygen through his skin? And also how he sold stolen shoes together with that friend who stole bicycles... What was his name, Abraham? Thomas? I forget. The name isn't important, this guy is just eerily much like Jesus.

So Jesus buys the spidernator from his convenience store friend, right, and brings it home to his friends in the ghetto. Sorry, in le ghèttô. And this is where the movie gets really good. I mean, the other Jesus in le Biblé could do that thing where he spoke constantly, and unfortunately we can only imagine how cool it must have sounded. But not only do we get to hear it in this masterpiece, but imagine if there were like twelve Jesuses, and they all spoke together at the same time! Yes, we get that!!! Now, a lesser man than me might call it a cacophony of mentally deranged word vomit, but really, it's like a choir of angels, bringing the whole experience to a whole new plateau of cinema brilliance. Sacre bleu!!!

Okay, but hang on to your hats, because it's definitely not going to get worse from here on out. But I have to warn you, a bit of a spoiler is coming up. Oh, wait, my wife is freaking out, I gotta go hack her to death with my machete. Better put on my angry face. Sorry! Gotta go.

The pacing is terrible, too many minutes are wasted on characters screaming and crying about irrelevant things. The soundtrack was probably made by the director's sister and that's why it's in here at all.

The main characters are annoying as hell most of the time.

If you are terrified of spiders, this is your movie. Otherwise, don't bother.