TRAILER: Watch The “Cub” Scouts Earn a Badge of Death

Part of the Toronto International Film Fest’s “Midnight Madness” series comes an interesting Belgium film called Cub, brought to the screen by first-time feature director Jonas Govaerts. The synopsis of the film claims that this is Lord of the Flies meets The Devil’s Backbone to create a world of childhood terrors. But if you ask me, this looks like the dark version of Moonrise Kingdom, just turned on its head. And the poster looks like it with a pinch of the moody video game Limbo (reviewed on Game Spot) spliced in.

Our friends at Twitch Film share with us some themes and ideas that stick out in Cub:

An atmosphere of danger and foreboding surrounds the young boys and their mostly clueless scout leaders, none of whom can see that they are the quarry in a sinister hunt — and as a series of ingenious booby traps start bloodily whittling down the troop’s numbers, it becomes clear that the boys are up against a foe far more formidable than even the perceptive Sam realizes.

Brilliantly evoking the sensation of cowering behind tent flaps while unseen dangers roam the dark woods outside, Cub marks Govaerts as a bold new voice in horror cinema: one who understands both the art of storytelling and the complex craft of inspiring real fear.

And the synopsis provided by TIFF reads:

Troubled twelve-year-old Sam (Maurice Luijten) heads off on a summer camping trip with his Cub Scout troupe. When the highly imaginative boy claims to have seen a creature in the woods, his counselors naturally assume that their campfire tales of a monster named Kai have gotten to him. But the danger Sam sees is all too real: watching from the darkness is a masked, feral child whose menacing snarl and quick movements go unnoticed by all except for Sam. As the mocking taunts of the other boys isolate Sam further from his pack, he becomes increasingly convinced that a terrible fate awaits them all.

Watch the teaser and you’ll get my Moonrise Kingdom reference: