French cinema has a long tradition of producing films that are unsettling, strange and, at times, downright horrifying - often with a little more on their minds than simply trying to make you jump.
From Julia Ducournau’s visceral body horror to Michael Haneke’s slow-burning psychological dread, these films demonstrate just how varied French horror can be. Some are bloody and grotesque, others are surreal and deeply unsettling, while one is a 1940s fairy tale that might give your children nightmares.
So, whether you’re looking for something genuinely terrifying or simply want to discover some of France’s most fascinating films, here are five French horror films guaranteed to get you into the scary spirit.
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Titane (2021)
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Starring: Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier
I remember the first time I watched Julia Ducournau’s Titane. It was at a screening at the Sydney Film Festival, in a packed-out theatre, and it was one of the greatest cinema experiences of my life. You could feel the crowd physically reacting to what was happening on screen, with people cringing at the body horror and, at certain points, yelling, “No, don’t do that!” It was the only time I’ve ever been in a public cinema where the audience had such a visceral reaction to what was being shown.
The film follows Alexia (Rousselle), a woman who, after being injured in a car crash as a child, has a titanium plate fitted into her head. As an adult, Alexia works as a model at car shows and develops an erotic fascination with automobiles, leading to a bizarre sexual encounter that sets off an increasingly outlandish series of events. These include Alexia pretending to be a missing teenage boy - a fiction that the boy’s actual father accepts and allows to continue.
The film is at times funny, at other times extremely uncomfortable and horrific, and at others deeply emotional and touching. You wouldn’t expect a film about a woman who has sex with cars to make you cry by the end - but Titane somehow manages to accomplish the impossible.
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Grave (Raw) (2016)
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Starring: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Laurent Lucas
Titane is the confident, rebellious older sister to Julia Ducournau’s earlier film Raw - the shy, good girl who eventually succumbs to the dark ways of her older sister. Raw is about this sister dynamic, too. Lifelong vegetarian Justine (Marillier) begins her first year at veterinary school, the same school her older sister Alexia (Rumpf) attends and where their parents met.
Desperate to fit in (and through her sister's manipulation), Justine strays from her principles and eats raw meat for the first time. She soon experiences terrible and unexpected consequences as she begins to realise that she is craving something more than just animal meat.
Once again, Ducournau delivers shocking and disgusting body horror. Although I don’t think Raw is quite as insane as Titane, it serves as a great introduction to her particular brand of horror. What I like about Ducournau’s films, compared with something like The Substance, is that both films contain horrific images designed to shock you, but in Titane and Raw, those images feel as though they carry much more weight and meaning. They aren’t simply there to be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Raw has a lot to say about female autonomy, sexual awakening and the chaotic struggle of transitioning from a sheltered childhood into adulthood - while also being a great time.
Caché (2005)
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche
Imagine walking out the front door of your lovely French house one morning to find a mysterious videotape on your porch containing footage of your own home under surveillance.
Caché follows an upper-middle-class French couple, Georges (Auteuil) and Anne (Binoche), who are terrorised by a series of these tapes. As they continue to arrive, clues in the videos begin to point towards Georges’ childhood memories, particularly his resistance to his parents’ adoption of an Algerian orphan named Majid, who was eventually sent away.
Personally, I’m not someone who particularly enjoys horror films filled with jump scares and brutal murders. I think horror is all about the particular atmosphere a film is able to evoke. If a film can make you live inside its bleak and terrifying world for two hours, I find that much scarier than a simple jump scare. And Caché does this so perfectly. You are trapped in this world of dread and claustrophobia to the point that it almost becomes difficult to breathe. Only special films are able to do this.
The film explores post-colonial guilt and collective amnesia, referencing the 1961 Paris massacre in which French police killed dozens of Algerian protesters. It also explores surveillance and the media, themes that were particularly poignant in the years following 9/11.
It’s a film that really forces you to sit with its themes and ideas because of the truly effective atmosphere it creates.
Climax (2018)
Directed by: Gaspar Noé
Starring: Sofia Boutella
Things that you have been creating for years can all be destroyed in a matter of hours. That is the sinking feeling I got from watching Gaspar Noé’s Climax.
The film follows a professional French dance troupe holding a days-long rehearsal inside an abandoned school. One night, during a snowstorm, the group of 24 successfully completes its elaborate closing piece and begins celebrating by drinking sangria together. But after a while, they realise that the sangria has been spiked with LSD.
What follows is some of the freakiest filmmaking I have ever witnessed. The film essentially descends into a chaotic ball of sex, death, jealousy, emotion and madness, and within a few hours, all of their lives have been drastically changed. It is a violent, relentlessly anxious film that makes you think about human nature and the things we value and place importance on.
The film is also notable for its unorthodox production. It was conceived and pre-produced in just four weeks and shot in chronological order over only 15 days. Much of the film was unrehearsed and improvised, with no traditional script, and the cast consisted almost exclusively of dancers who, aside from Boutella and Souheila Yacoub, had no previous acting experience.
La Belle et La Bête (Beauty and the Beast) (1946)
Directed by: Jean Cocteau
Starring: Jean Marais, Josette Day
After recently watching David Robert Mitchell’s new film The End of Oak Street, I came to the conclusion that there aren’t enough children’s films that traumatised their viewers. I remember watching Jumanji, Jurassic Park and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - films made for children that also gave them nightmares. And Jean Cocteau’s astounding 1946 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast is one that qualifies for this list.
Although you may not think of the story as particularly horrific, let me remind you what it is about. In the 1946 film, Belle’s father is sentenced to death for picking a rose from the Beast’s garden, and Belle offers to go back to the Beast in her father’s place.
Through incredibly surreal and fantastical production design, the Beast’s castle is full of arms emerging from the walls, almost as though it were a living, breathing creature. Not to mention the Beast’s hideously frightening face. It is the stuff of nightmares, and Cocteau does a sensational job of creating a terrifying atmosphere that we, along with Belle, are forced to live inside.
And yet, at the same time, the film somehow gets us to care about the Beast.
By Lleyton Hughes
La Belle et La Bête will be playing as part of Lost in Frenchlation’s programme in October. Lost in Frenchlation is a Paris-based cinema club that offers screenings of French films, both classics and new releases, with English subtitles.
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