Arguably, one of the most common fears is that of spiders; and Infested — just the name alone gives me goosebumps — knows it. Shudder’s newest film keeps up that familiar feeling like something’s crawling up your arm all throughout its runtime, with characters ducking around corners covered in webs in a steady paranoia. It does this by being a great survival movie that turns into a creature-feature as well as throwing in psychological/body horror elements. However, its best trick is how it manages to show us an evil more sinister than eight-legged monsters amidst all this.
Infested directed by Sébastien Vaniček (who co-wrote alongside Florent Bernard) sees a French apartment building (that very clearly has seen better days) become overrun with rapidly growing and breeding spiders. Kaleb (Théo Christine) starts it all off when he illegally buys a spider to add to his — we later find out — reptile/insect/other creepy crawlie-filled bedroom zoo. Naturally, Kaleb fails to secure his newly bought spider as he rushes off to his elderly neighbor’s birthday party where the arachnid escapes and lays eggs everywhere it goes. These quickly hatch and terrorize the tenants who are quarantined while officials try to figure out what to do
You will squirm at parts of Infested even if you’re not necessarily scared of spiders. That’s because the film doesn’t solely rely on its arachnids for fear factor. Vaniček uses all those great horror tropes and conventions that hark back to classic horror movies so well. From composers Xavier Caux and Douglas Cavanna’s grating strings through high-contrast cinematography by Alexandre Jamin making the darkest corridors feel like an abyss, this movie preys on our senses and primes us for a thrill ride — so much so that just seeing the smallest spider scurry across frame is enough to make us shudder.
But that doesn’t mean the spiders aren’t terrifying in their own right (one scene indirectly references Alien’s chest-burster). There hasn’t been a horror movie since 1990’s Arachnophobia that has portrayed these eight-legged creatures as actual monsters. Throughout cinema history — and even Arachnophobia is guilty of this to an extent — spider-driven horror movies have leaned towards camp and/or comedy (Spider Baby, Eight Legged Freaks).
However, Vaniček and Bernard give this species of spider a certain grotesque mythology, which allows its exoticism to push our imagination in Infested. In fact, the opening sequence shows a group of men traveling to a middle-of-nowhere desert to hunt it down, one of them who dies from its bite in the most painful way possible; death being his only mercy.
It also helps that Infested triggers our collective trauma in that Kaleb and the rest of his neighbors — which includes his sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko), friend Mathys (Jérôme Niel), estranged best buddy Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield), and Jordy’s partner Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) — are forced to quarantine by city officials, who initially believe that the first victims of the spiders have died either by accidental drug overdose or some sort of viral infection. Immediately, the film recalls the isolation we all felt at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when we were locked down and restless.
What also propels Infested is its focus on humanity. The film takes its time, specifically in the first act, to allow us to get to know the main cast and the key tenants of the building. While some characters suffer from a lack of full development, which becomes especially glaring in the final, go-big-or-go-home action sequence, Vaniček does take great care in establishing Kaleb, in particular, as a complex protagonist. In this role, Christine is exciting to watch as he juggles the layers of his character: his complicated history, his struggle to find his stride in the world, and his guilt over bringing the spider to the apartment in the first place.
In a way Infested’s equal prioritization of this community’s individuals unearths an even more evil threat than does whatever they saw outside: other people. On one hand there’s an argument about how involuntarily ripped from its natural habitat was original spider trafficked by illegal traders then made survive under less ideal conditions than those usually found within its ecosystem As a matter fact these creatures largely attack back after humans strike them first; elsewhere they’re only doing what comes naturally: nesting and breeding.
But on another side we should look at what authorities did with Kaleb & co. Whether or not this was intentional social commentary on Vaniček’s part, Infested is as compelling and believable a horror movie because most residents are black, brown and/or poor — no other demographic gets disproportionately left behind by those in power. Between police thinking drugs were involved initially, media ignoring it altogether & cops just brushing off Kaleb et al., racism here functions much like an epidemic among arachnids.
During final act of Infestation when everything goes crazy – policemen shooting spiders from every direction etcetera – please don’t forget that one simple act of kindness saved them all.