Around the turn of the millennium, following the impact of movies like Michael Hanukkah's

funny games, European filmmakers, French filmmakers in particular began dabbling in films that

straddled both Art House and Grind House. The early films of the new French extremity movement,

like Gaspenoe's Istand Alone and Irreversible, or Clé Denise's Trouble Every Day, were

predominantly Art House dramas that just happened to contain visceral, extreme horror, the likes

of which audiences hadn't seen before. But it wasn't until 2003 that new French extremity

arrived firmly within the horror genre. Director Alexander Arger made a home invasion film about

a family being brutally murdered and pursued by a deranged killer, which perfectly seemed to

balance both French Art House with 70's Grind House aesthetics, high tension, or switchblade

romance, crossed over from being simply an indie Art House movie into being a mainstream horror

success, and arguably became one of the most influential films of that decade, giving horror a more

grimy, 70 style aesthetic. From this point onwards, France continued to create brutal,

unflinching horror films, like martyrs inside and frontiers. But another less talked about

movie from this movement about a home invasion in Romania in 2006 remains one of the most tense

and dread inducing films of the decade. Join me as we continue exploring the evolution

of home invasion, and we discuss two new French extremity classics, high tension and them.

Bonjour and welcome back to the evolution of horror, my name is Mike Munter, as ever I am your host.

In this podcast, we explore and dissect the history and the evolution of the horror genre

one subgenre at a time. We are currently in the middle of our ninth season exploring the evolution

of home invasion films, and this is part 21. Can't believe we're already up to week 21 of this series,

but this week, as that intro suggested, we are going to be talking about two French classics

from the 2000s. This is where things get really nasty. We're talking high tension or switchblade

...