Anyone who has ever seen a one-shot film know what intensity such a film experience brings with it. The crime thriller Victoria led us through the Berlin night in a single attitude. The war film in 1917 hid its cuts in such a way that we believed that we were almost first able to fight the fight. And in the new horror film Mads we can now experience the zombie apocalypse in a uniquely gripping way “live and uncut”.
The end of the world without cuts: Mads grind us adamantly into the zombie outbreak
Mads was currently running at the Fantasy Film Festival White Nights and absolutely belongs to the memorial list for fans of intensive horror trips. At the Genre Festival, director David Moreau said by video message that he made his almost 90-minute film in five rounds-and that it was the perfect fifth take at the end. Fortunately, we do not see the incredible planning behind such a undertaking when it takes us and takes us by hand and Terred into the night in an increasingly rushing sock.
At first everything starts relatively peacefully in Mads: When the evening dawns, Romain (Milton Riche) covers an upcoming party at his local dealer. However, drugs will soon be his slightest concern when he collects an injured woman on the side of the road. The unknown can just hold a dictation machine under his nose with recorded experiments, then she falls over him.
After that, the night is increasing. Although the shocked Romain actually wants to stay at home, his girlfriend Anaïs (Laurie Pavy) takes him to a house party, where her BFF Julia (Lucille Guillaume) is drawn into the matter. Mads attracts the narrative pace with the hardness of a thumb screw until we ourselves in the cinema chair Breathlessly cheered on how the world derailed before our eyes.
Mads is a zombie horror experience like no other
The greatest strength of the unusual horror film is of course the immediacy of his one-shot narrative. When the camera sticks continuously on one of the three main characters, we accompany them live into the downward spiral. In this chaos, perspectives change seamlessly as handed over the marathon run.
In the zombie stories The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later, the protagonists wake up from their coma in a changed world. Mads chooses the opposite path: Here we can watch from minute to minute how the situation escalates in the microcosm of a small town. Namely painful up close: Romain loses unstoppable to the virus and, like us, cannot do anything against the progressive horror when he discovers that his eyes shine in the dark.
The fact that the origin of the zombie outbreak remains vaguely fits the panic, which all involved. You can only react unprepared instead of researching the causes. Even in his ideas, Mads convinces as an unusual zombie film. The biting infected may still appear to be familiar with a die-hard horror fan. But soon more creative excesses of the epidemic will follow. In addition to the symptoms of initial twitches and uncontrolled laughter, an obsession with light is added, which obviously gives the sick overhentible power.
More from the Fantasy Film Festival White Nights:
The uncut gray is worthwhile as a dirty adrenaline boost
Whether in the car, on a loading area, running or on the bike or moped: Mads remains constantly in motion. Which is almost ironic. Because neither the infection nor the suddenly appearing, hooded pursuers with their machine guns and lamps can escape.
The dark humor of the film is as relentless as the hunt through the night. For example, he shimmers through when the freshly infected Romain and his father calls his father on the phone because of the alarm system of the house and we learn in a subordinate clause that he has his birthday today. Or if Julia has to listen to a bloodbath in the elevator, which is stuck, while the automated lift voice calls for “staying calm and wait”.
That Mads The substance goesshould be clear to everyone. The madness is already in the title. Here a breathless, welding horror experience awaits, after which the cinema is placed, but impresses … in order to then first check at home in front of your own mirror whether your eyes have not started to shine. But the wild ride is definitely worth it – for everyone who dares.
Unfortunately, it is currently not yet known which further evaluation of Mads in the cinema or stream in Germany. Capelight has already secured the rental rights, which is why the film will probably also get a regular start.
Anyone who missed the Fantasy Film Festival White Nights can also make a note of the Fantasy Film Festival Nights in May 2025, where brand new genre films will run again.
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