Movies
‘Livide’ Review – French Horror Is a Beautiful Nightmare!
“‘Livid‘s true gift is its creative madness, a film that’s drenched in imagery that will resonate with viewers for decades. Still, Livid is not going to make fans of Inside happy. In fact, I expect most of you to despise it with pure venom.”
For the first time in five years, I was a witness to the rowdy Midnight Madness audience stunned to deafening silence. The theater carried this glazed look of shock that people display when they’re witness to a horrible accident. In fact, it was the exact opposite experience from when I witnessed the premiere of French directing duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo‘s Inside back in 2007.
But to say Livide is a bad movie is a major fallacy, in fact, I’m pretty sure it will eventually grow on those who were expecting a bloodbath. It only took me two days to let it sink in…
While press has been minimal, the directors had previously said that the “fairy tale” was an homage to early Hammer and other classic genre films (there are multiple “winks” to classics such as Halloween and An American Werewolf in London), and made it clear that the audience should not expect heavy bloodshed. Their words couldn’t have been more true, as the film could be best described as a living nightmare with heavy influence by Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
My friend summed it up perfectly, realizing that the characters move through the world like they’re in a dream; they walk and interact with objects incredibly slow, they ignore various objects, and they never quite dwell on nor acknowledge weird occurrences (they move quickly to the next sequence as if nothing happened). To an audience, it’s absolutely perplexing and unnatural, but by stepping back it’s easy to see that Livide is a nightmare translated to film (like something out of an Elm Street dream sequence).
But Livide‘s true gift is its creative madness, a film that’s drenched in imagery that will resonate with viewers for decades. It reminds me of that movie you’d watch through your fingers when you were 8 years old, revisit 20 years later, and fall in love.
And even though it’s not an ultra-violent effort, there are still quite a bit of gore-filled sequences that’ll give the gorehounds a taste of what they desire. Instead, the duo focus on atmosphere and fear; Livid can be pretty f*cking scary – and it’s jam-packed with bizarre and terrifying oddities (like the robot ballerina who appears to come to life). Unfortunately, the movie needs to fight for the audience’s respect, which is completely lost in the finale that literally goes off the deep end. In fact, I’d say it straight up infuriated some people.
Livide is not going to make fans of Inside happy. In fact, I expect most of you to despise it with pure venom. But I implore you all to manage your expectations, shift your thinking, and go in with a clear mind. My hope is that you’ll find a place in your heart for this moody art-house horror pic, one that’s sure to be trashed across the board.
Reviewed at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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