From pruning knives, to a table-saw, to pulley-activated mousetraps, DIY buffs will be in heaven watching this rigorously conceived and intelligently shot French horror-thriller (and the more gore-literate will notice a lot of Chekhov’s guns being cocked). Director Pierre Mouchet takes the artisan’s approach to his debut piece, crafting with an utter economy at 73 minutes; one in which every detail and conversation counts. Even the more lurid elements feel grounded and justified, emerging directly from the sinister Vosges forest setting.
Lucas (Louka Melieva) has returned to the countryside to bury his parents, who have been killed in a house fire. But he is the keeper of a dark secret; when he was eight, his lumberjack father fatally struck his friend Mathias in his car and covered up the accident. With his girlfriend Julie (Léna Laprès) and pal Arnaud (Côme Levin), he runs into Mathias’s father (Gilles David) – now a widower who uses a wheelchair. Their car breaks down; they are forced to stay the night and suffer their host breaking out the woodwork chat and introducing the city folk to the local custom of the “schlitter”: the practice of transporting lumber down sheer slopes on a perilous-looking sled.
