Les Affamés (3 Stars)

This is the sixth film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

This is a Canadian zombie film made in French. It was a new experience for me. I've never heard Canadian French before. My understanding of French is very good, and I don't usually need subtitles when I watch a French film, but I hardly understood any of this film. The accent sounded so bizarre to my ears.

The film is about small groups of humans who are hunting zombies. As you all know, zombies tend to vary in nature from one film to another. Every director has his own ideas what zombies should be like. In this film the zombies infect humans by biting them, which is practically the only feature common to all zombie films.

After being bit it takes about two days to become a zombie, so a victim can continue to fight until the change sets in. This is in contrast to films like "The Girl with all the Gifts", in which the change takes place within minutes.

The zombies in this film run fast and scream while they're running. In most films zombies walk slowly.

What's very different to other films is that the zombies in this film show intelligence in catching victims. They might run fast and loud when they're attacking, but they're smart enough to sneak up behind a victim without making a sound.

There's one really strange thing in this film that's not explained. The zombies collect chairs and build a high tower in a field. Then they stand for hours staring at the chairs. Very weird indeed.

It's a depressing film. The humans are picked off one by one, making it difficult for the viewer to guess who will be left alive at the end, if anyone. It was voted Best Canadian Film at the Toronto Film Festival, which I find difficult to understand. The plot goes nowhere.