French Horror Comes Home

French horror in recent years has recieved a huge jump in popularity with the likes of Alexandre Aja's stunning debut High Tension and remarkable followup The Hills Have Eyes.  However as we all know there are more French horror directors out there that are making their way onto the stage. 

Fangoria has gotten word on a pair of the French horror films, one of which most have probably heard of and the other one maybe not so much.  First off, the street date for Alexandre Bustillo's & Julien Maury's Inside has been set for April 15 on an Unrated DVD from Dimension Extreme.  Special features haven't been announced.  The highly praised gorefest has a young, pregnant woman named Sara grieveing over the loss of her boyfriend.  However, one night a woman comes to her house, with the sole purpose of slicing out Sara's baby.  Bustillo and Maury should be known to fans as they have signed on to write and direct the redux of Hellraiser.
 
The big surprise however is for a film called Malefique, by Eric Valette.  Valette's name should be familiar to some people as he helmed the remake of One Missed Call as well as according to his IMDB page he is attached to helm the Clock Tower adaptation.  Now much to my surprise, unlike his American debut, Valette's French film is highly praised and has gotten a lot positive feedback.  In the film, four French prisoners find a book full of spells and incantations and try to use it for an escape, sadly for them...they unleash hell upon themselves.  The only special feature is the trailer, and it will hit DVD on April 15.

Speaking of French horror filmmakers, let me make an observation that I am sure is held by others here at the site.  We are seeing highly praised filmmakers coming to the United States for their US debut and churning out, crap.  Most recently Xavier Palud and David Moreau of Ils churned out The Eye remake.  It seems like producers are trying to make their own Alexandre Aja, but for some reason these guys can't seem to it that spot.  My opinion, producers meddling with the filmmakers and not letting them do what they want to create the scare.  Course thats my own opinion. 

If anyone by chance has seen Inside or Malefique, please sound off on the boards and let us know what you think of it and write a review.