Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Three French school kids bunk off, burn down a barn then stumble across something horrific that will cost them and their loved ones dearly. I think the French are quite possibly at the forefront with horror cinema at the moment, this is a movie that I could imagine Rob Zombie wanting to make but it simply wouldn't be at this level. Here we have an interesting, though simple plot. There's gore, some pretty strong, but the film's strength for me was it's tension, reminded me of say John Carpenter's "Halloween". Very well filmed. I picked this up for a mere £1 from my local Poundland shop, what a fantastic bargain it turned out to be. I really don't understand the current 5.4/10 score. Perhaps many people don't like having to read subtitles!?

I mostly enjoyed this. The film taken as a whole seems pretty slight, not just in terms of plot (which is standard for the directors) but also in effect. The film is creepy and nasty. There's a horrifying "monster" in this played with great physicality by Fabien Jegoudez. There are scenes of absolute intensity, with beautiful haunting mise en scene. Yet the whole thing feels a bit undercooked. What starts as a dark side of the Spielbergian kids on a mission story turns into a home invasion thriller and then into something else. It's not enough of any but it's fun watching it try. There seems to be a sociological context to it all that was a bit lost on me. Maybe it's a French thing - this worry about toxic gases from the military affecting the children. But should we fear them or pity them? No matter.

Kids reluctantly go trick-or-treating to some run-down house. The door opens. It's the lady from Inside who is pregnant this time. Her husband is having some flashbacks presumably related to military duty. He was exposed to some gas that may genetically affect his descendants. Suddenly the woman takes a bat and smashes his head in. She then goes upstairs and complains about someone or something in the room. She's about to kill it, then the husband shows up and attacks her to protect whatever is in the room. She slits her throat and he removes the fetus from her body and leaves.So far so good. Two years later we meet three annoying troublesome teens. They run away from school instead of showing up for detention, smoke weed, try to burn down a barn, nearly kill the barn's owner with a hatchet. They go to an abandoned movie studio where they find a woman screaming in a car trunk. They call the police who find nothing. But we know someone lives in one of the studio buildings.The kids are returned to their parents. And eventually something shows up at each kids' house to kill the residents. We learn who is doing the killing and of course the final family will have to fight back.If this were a movie made by someone unknown it would be a bad movie but given that it was made by Bustillo and Maury makes it even worse. And Among the Living is unfortunately very bad. The movie never takes off, it never goes anywhere. After the intro, it creates zero tension, zero thrills. There is no central character, no one to root for. The villain is weak, too, lacks personality and doesn't look cool either. I counted one interesting death scene. I can't really think of a reason to recommend this movie.

Or maybe not. But don't be fooled by the beginning of this movie. It does turn out to go a bit of a different direction after that. While it starts off very dark and also seems to tend to be in a special sort of "mood", we switch location and also a bit of characters. At least that's what it looks like. The story overall might not make the most sense (and characters reacting weird as always in horror movies), but the tension it builds is really good.The kids playing a big role here, have to shoulder quite a lot of the movie and they are doing a good job. The effects are also very good and while it is by the numbers (no pun intended), you can have fun with it, if you are not too precious about it.