TIFF - Livid

Rating: ***

Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury made a splash the last time they were at the Toronto International Film Festival with their first movie Inside. Sadly, I don’t think Livid will make as big an impact, but I don’t think that comes from a lack of trying. Livid is a haunted house mystery that’s creepy and engaging, but there’s not a lot that jumps out at the audience, or at least not a lot to make you jump out of your seat.

The film’s heroine, Lucie (Chloé Coulloud), is a young woman that’s training to take care of people shut in their homes. Lucie’s trademark is her heterochromia, she has one eye that’s blue and one eye that’s brown, a fact that’s immediately picked up on by Madame Wilson (Catherine Jacob), the experienced nurse training her. A trip to the country mansion of renowned dancer, Madame Jessel (Marie-Claude Pietragalla) leads Lucie and two of friends on a midnight heist to rip off a comatose old lady of her rumoured treasure, but naturally that’s easier said than done.

So what’s the story? Well, it’s part ghost story, part Cube, part Black Swan, part Frankenstein, and part Let the Right One In. Perhaps that’s the contributing factor to the film’s interesting tone, it is a whole lot of different horror stories rolled into one package. But Livid clarifies nothing, and while the film goes along for the first half as a perfectly serviceable haunted house drama, it segues into a vampire story as he flashback and see Madame Jessel’s daughter eat one of her dance classmates and then run out into the sunlight and flies around inexplicably. It’s more or less all downhill from there.

But the film itself has atmosphere to spare. The production design and set decoration is so brilliantly realized that you should practically get Goosebumps just by seeing the on screen imagery. But for some strange reason there’s a disconnect between style and substance; the film looks amazing, there’s a story that seems like it wants to be told, but the film really leaves no lasting trace, no haunted feeling. I wouldn’t call the film a disappointment, but it was a kind of a letdown. Still, it’s a compelling let down just the same and it still kind of shows the promise of Hunger. Perhaps the third time will find the charm again.